RUSSIA: Russia, on Thursday, denied any involvement in deadly air strikes on a Syrian school and rejected a UN-led investigation showing its ally Damascus had carried out chemical attacks, as Moscow's relations with the West took another hit.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded an immediate probe into Wednesday's attack on the school in rebel-held Idlib province that he termed "a war crime".
The tensions mounted a day after the United States and Britain said they expected an assault in the next few weeks to drive the Islamic State jihadist group out of Raqa, its de facto capital in Syria.
Syria's conflict broke out in March 2011 with peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government but has evolved into a complex war involving regional and international powers that had killed more than 300,000 people.
One complication has been the involvement of Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his country's military operation supporting Syrian rebels will also target Raqa.
Russia, whose military intervened in Syria in September 2015, denied having any role in air strikes on the school that the UN children's agency UNICEF said killed 22 students and six teachers.
"The Russian Federation has nothing to do with this terrible tragedy, with this attack," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Zakharova said claims Russian and Syrian warplanes had conducted the strikes were "a lie".
Russia's defence ministry also denied any involvement.
"On Wednesday, October 26, not one Russian warplane entered that area," spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
He said photographs taken by a Russian drone showed that the roof of the school reportedly hit in the strikes showed no damage and that there were no craters attributable to bombs in the area.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, "warplanes -- either Russian or Syrian -- had carried out six strikes" in the Idlib provincial village of Hass, including on the school complex.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was not convinced by the Russian denials.
"Who is responsible? In any case, it is not the (Syrian) opposition, as to bomb you must have planes. It is either the Syrians, the regime of Bashar al-Assad, or the Russians," Ayrault said in Paris.