VLAD HITS BACK
Nuke ship drafted in after US Syria blitz
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ANGRY Vladimir Putin sent a nuclear warship to Syria last night as he hit back at Donald Trump’s missile blitz.
He vowed to strengthen tyrant Bashar al-Assad’s air defences – sparking fears of an all-out war between Russia and the West.
The Russian president sent frigate Admiral Grigorovich – which carries nuclear missiles – to Syria’s Mediterranean port city Tartus.
It came after America’s President Trump shocked the world by attacking a Syrian airbase with 59 Tomahawk missiles.
The blitz on Shayrat airfield was launched in response to Assad’s chemical gas attack, which killed 85 including 30 children.
Mr Trump had vowed to act after the image of Syrian dad Abdel Alyousef holding the lifeless bodies of his nine-monthold twins Aya and Ahmed sparked outrage across the globe. Mr Trump said: “Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”
But Mr Putin, an ally of Assad, called the US strike “an illegal act of aggression”.
He warned it would “damage US-Russia ties” and demanded an emergency UN meeting.
He later scrapped a deal aimed at avoiding clashes with US fighter jets in Syria’s skies.
Britain backed the strike, with PM Theresa May branding it an “appropriate response”.
But former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, a pal of the US president, said he was “very surprised”. He added: “A lot of Trump voters will be waking up this morning and scratching their heads and saying: ‘Where will it all end?’”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the action “risks intensifying a multi-sided conflict”.
Senior military officials say the US is looking into whether Russia took part in Syria’s chemical weapons attack.