MOSCOW, September 20. /TASS/: The claims made by the US that its weapons is brilliant are not supported by their use in the reality, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Friday.
"A lot of what the US is doing in the region [Middle East] more and more seems to be a regional collapse rather than a policy, one way or another. <…> We still remember the fantastic US missiles that failed to hit a target more than a year ago, while now the brilliant US air defense systems could not repel an attack. These are all links in a chain. This self-exposure is happening in a specific region in the context of what the US is doing and can offer the modern world," she said.
The Saudi Aramco oil facilities situated in the east of Saudi Arabia were attacked by ten drones in the early hours of September 14. The Ansar Allah movement’s Yemeni Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack. The attacks on the kingdom’s oil refineries led to crude output dropping by half of its normal level. In particular, the world’s biggest oil refinery near the city of Abqaiq, where many western specialists reside, and a refinery near Khurais, where Saudi’s second largest oil field is situated, came under the attack. A huge blaze erupted at the two facilities. Later, the authorities announced that the fire had been contained. The attack and subsequent fires led to a plunge in the oil production of the biggest oil exporter in the world, dropping by 5.7 million barrels of crude oil production per day from the normal level of 9.8 million barrels for the kingdom. Speaking about why US Patriot surface-to-air missile systems could not repel the attack, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed out that air defense systems "have mixed success" and "don’t always pick things up."
On April 14, 2018, the US, Great Britain and France attacked several Syrian targets, firing over 100 missiles. The three countries claimed that the attack was a response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Syrian air defenses succeeded in downing 71 missiles out of 103 cruise missiles. Washington, London and Paris claimed that the attacks were launched in response to an alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma.
