According to the Defense Ministry's spokesman, the true targets of the strike delivered by the US, the UK and France were Syrian military facilities, including airfields

MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/.The US and its allies sought to hit Syrian military targets, including airfields, during their missile strike, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on Monday. "The true targets of the strike delivered by the US, the UK and France on April 14 were both facilities in Barzeh and Jaramani and Syrian military facilities, including airfields," he said. According to Konashenkov, a photo of a facility located in the Barzeh area shows that "the destruction caused by the missile strike does not correspond to the scale of destruction from the use of three dozen cruise missiles." "Moreover, the survey of this and other facilities revealed neither this number of ammunition fragments nor the corresponding number of craters," he added.

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A mere thirty missiles would be more than enough for destroying the facilities the Air Forces of the US, UK and France chose as targets for last Saturday’s missile strike, Konashenkov added. "One can see perfectly well from the satellite photos circulated by the Western media these are ordinary buildings on the surface," he said. "I’d like to recall that the Tomahawk missile warhead is equivalent of 500 kg of the TNT depending on its type." "That’s why, whatever the method of computation, a mere ten missiles would be enough to destroy each of the three facilities even with account of a three-fold margin," Gen Konashenkov pointed out. Syria's air defense As many as 112 surface-to-air missiles, including 25 Pansir missiles, were used by Syria’s air defense forces to repel the strike delivered by the United States, France and the United Kingdom, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said. "A total of 112 surface-to-air guided missiles were used to repel the strike," he said, adding that 23 out of 25 missiles fired from the Pansir-S1 system had hit their targets. "Twenty-nine missile were fired from the Buk system, with 24 of them hitting targets. Eleven missiles were fire from the Osa system. Five of them hit the targets. Thirteen missiles were fired from the S-125 system, five hit the targets. Five missiles were fired from the Strela-10 system, three hit the targets, Twenty-one missiles were fired from the Kvadrat system, eleven hit the targets. Eight missiles were fired from the S-200 systems, none hit the targets," he said, adding that such poor performance of the S-200 system could be explained by the fact that it was meant to hit aircraft. Moreover, in his words, a missile fire from this system hit a fighter jet of one of the neighboring countries not long ago.

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