MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s Defence Ministry denied on Monday that Russian war planes had carried out deadly air strikes on a village in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province that had killed dozens of civilians, the Interfax news agency reported.

Moscow was responding after the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 53 civilians, including children, had been killed in Russian air strikes in the eastern Syrian village of Al-Shafah.