US senator and former presidential candidate John McCain has slammed Russia for its role in the Syria conflict. At the Munich Security Conference in Germany, McCain accused Russia of using Syria “as a live-fire exercise” for its military, noting that Putin did not want to be a partner of the US.
Russia entered the five-year-long conflict in Syria in September, and continues to carry out a devastating campaign of airstrikes which has helped the Assad regime.
McCain, who lost the presidential race to Barack Obama in 2008, argued that Russian president Vladimir Putin was aiming to “shore up the Assad regime.”
Russia carries out its airstrikes from an air base in Syria’s Latakia province, and area where the regime still holds considerable power.
“He wants to re-establish Russia as a major power in the Middle East. He wants to use Syria as a live-fire exercise for Russia's modernizing military, he wants to turn Latakia province into a military outpost from which to harden and enforce a Russian sphere of influence,” McCain said.
He added that Putin wanted to “exacerbate the refugee crisis and use it as a weapon to divide the trans-Atlantic alliance and undermine the European project.”
