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Russia claims that a video featuring a child being doused in liquid following the Syria 'chemical weapons attack' is fake news.

The country says it has uncovered hard evidence to back up the claim over the video that triggered the West's air strikes on Syria.

In the footage an 11-year-old boy is being doused in water but it is alleged that he was tricked into taking part, and his father alleged hungry participants were given “dates, biscuits and rice”.

Moscow insists there was no chemical attack on Douma, and that Western-backed NGO White Helmets staged the footage.

State-run Rossiya 24 television, tracked down the boy who they identified as Hassan Diab.

They claimed the child said that he and his mother heard loud shouts on the street urging people to rush to hospitals.

When he got there “unknown people grabbed him, poured water on him, and then put him with other patients,” according to a report by Kremlin-owned Sputnik news agency.

The boy said: "We were in the basement.

“Mum told me that today we don't have anything to eat and that we will eat tomorrow.

“We heard a cry outside, calling ‘go to the hospital’.

“We ran to the hospital and as soon as I entered, they grabbed me and started pouring water on me.”

His father Omar Diab said in the report by well-known Russian war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny that he was at work when he was told his son was in hospital.

He rushed there “and found his family in good health”.

"There were no chemical weapons. I smoked outside and felt nothing,” he said.

“I entered the hospital and saw my family.

“Militants gave them dates, biscuits and rice for participating in this film and released everyone to their homes.”

In the video footage the boy can be seen sat on a hospital bed soaking wet.

He looks confused and disorientated as doctors crowd around him and other children, appearing to give them inhalers to help with their breathing.

The channel also interviewed a doctor who claimed there was not any patients who had signs of the impact of chemical weapons.

There were patients with respiratory problems from smoke and dust in recent bombings, he said.

“All doctors were busy taking care of them and didn't have time to react to the White Helmets' film crew,” reported Sputnik.

Meanwhile, state-owned Rossiya 1 picked up on comments on the BBC by Lord West, former First Sea Lord, and security advisor to ex-premier Gordon Brown.

He questioned the evidence in the Douma chemical attack, and was challenged by presenter Annita McVeigh he may be "muddying the waters" at a time when Britain is "in an information war" with Russia.

Moscow reports edited out Lord West calling Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad a "loathsome man" and the peer's dismissal as "nonsense" of Russian claims of British involvement in the Douma incident.

They also ignored him saying that the Russians “lie as a matter of policy".

But stare-controlled Channel One pounced on presenter Annita McVeigh's comment, suggesting it proved Britain was "waging" an information war on Russia.

"Previously they said that we here are waging an information war, and now it turns out that it is they who are doing this,” said host Kirill Kleimyonov.

“The main thing is not to be shy and to calmly take the next step, and admit that a synonym for information war is propaganda.”