Russian President President Vladimir Putin listens to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, New York, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015. A U.S. defense official tells The Associated Press that Russia has launched airstrikes in Syria.

MOSCOW (Tribune News Service) — Russian President Vladimir Putin defended his military’s air and cruise-missile strikes on terrorist targets in Syria, saying the campaign was already more effective than discontinued U.S. efforts to support some militant groups.

President Barack Obama’s administration last week abandoned its attempt to build and train a rebel force in Syria to take on the Islamic State group. The U.S. will instead focus on equipping selected leaders and providing air support to their units, including Arab and Kurdish groups in Syria.

“It would have been better to give us $500 million,” Putin said of the aborted U.S. program to fund the Free Syrian Army. “At least we would have used it more effectively from the point of view of fighting international terrorism.”

In a television interview broadcast Sunday, Putin said Russia’s involvement was legal and reasonable because it followed a Syrian request for assistance. He questioned whether the U.S. had lived up to either of those standards.

“The simplest solution for them would be to join us and, in that way, legalize their actions on Syrian territory,” Putin said of the U.S.

Putin’s bombing campaign to support his Syrian ally President Bashar Assad took the U.S. and NATO by surprise and overshadowed a flurry of diplomacy over what to do about the conflict. As Russia builds up its military presence in Assad’s stronghold on the eastern Mediterranean, Obama dismissed the notion that his leadership on the world stage was being challenged.

Putin reiterated that Russia will not send ground troops to Syria and said he does not seek to stoke religious tensions in the Middle East. Russian airstrikes, which have included missiles launched from the Caspian Sea, are intended to stabilize the legitimate authorities, he said.

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