Trump administration officials on Sunday blamed Russian inaction for enabling a deadly poison gas attack against Syrian civilians last week as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson prepared to explain to Moscow a U.S. retaliatory missile strike.
Tillerson said Syria was able to execute the attack, which killed scores of people, because Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria.
White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Syria's "sponsors," Russia and Iran, were enabling President Bashar Assad's "campaign of mass murder against his own civilians."