Syria Direct reports: Reported Russian airstrikes knocked three hospitals in northern Syria out of service on Monday, depriving more than 5,000 patients a month of care ahead of the deadline for a “cessation of hostilities” deal worked out between major powers at last week’s annual Munich Security.

The ceasefire, notably, excludes the Islamic State in addition to Jabhat a-Nusra, one of the lead factions in the Victory Army that controls nearly all of Idlib province.

Two hospitals, one belonging to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), were bombed in Idlib province on Monday. A third, a women and children’s hospital in the city of Azaz near the Turkish border, was also hit.

The National Hospital, also in Maarat al-Nuaman, was bombed shortly after the strikes on the MSF facility, Amjed al-Idlibi, a first responder with the Civil Defense who worked to extract the dead and wounded, told Syria Direct Tuesday.

“Both hospitals were hit directly…the planes returned several times to conduct air raids, with roughly 10 minutes between each raid,” said al-Idlibi. He said that the planes were Russian. [Continue reading…]

Meanwhile, Russia’s TASS reports: The Kremlin has dismissed as unacceptable the allegations the Russian air group in Syria has destroyed a hospital in Syria.

“We are strongly against such claims, the more so, since each time those who come up with such charges prove unable to somehow confirm their groundless accusations,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Asked for a comment regarding reports a hospital in Syria’s Idlib province had been bombed, as well as claims the Russian air group was responsible, Peskov invited everybody to rely “on the root source first and foremost.” “In this particular case the representatives of Syrian authorities are the root source,” he said.

Peskov recalled that Syria’s ambassador to Russia, Riyadh Haddad, said on Tuesday the hospital in Idlib province was destroyed by the Americans, and not the Russian air group. [Continue reading…]

Note the reasoning of the propagandists: The allegations that the airstrikes on hospitals were carried out by Russia are firstly dismissed as “groundless accusations” and secondly dismissed by repeating a groundless accusation made by Syria’s ambassador to Russia — that these were U.S. airstrikes.

Unfortunately, there exists an uncritical audience all too willing to swallow this kind of shameless lying and tortured reasoning.