Putin: West Playing “Double Game” over Syria

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused the West of playing a "double game" with terrorist groups in Syria, where a US-led coalition is conducting a bombing campaign.

"It's always difficult to play a double game: declaring a fight against terrorists while simultaneously trying to use some of them to arrange the pieces on the Middle East chess board in one's own interests," Putin said at a meeting of political scientists known as the Valdai Club.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

"It is impossible to prevail over terrorism if some of the terrorists are being used as a battering ram to overthrow undesirable regimes," Putin said.

"There is no need to play on words, to classify terrorists are moderate and non-moderate," Putin said.

"What is the difference?" Putin said, suggesting that "in the opinion of some experts... so-called moderate bandits behead people moderately or gently."

The United States is leading a 60-plus member coalition allegedly targeting ISIL Takfiri group (so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Levant) in Iraq and Syria and has been carrying out frequent raids for more than a year.

Under the request of the Syrian government, Russia also is launching an air campaign against ISIL and other terrorists.

Russia's defense ministry said Thursday it had struck 72 "terrorist" targets in Syria over the past 24 hours, claiming to have destroyed the combat capability of the main terrorist groups operating in the country.

"As a result of Russian air strikes, the main forces of terrorist groups, made up of the best trained terrorists, have lost combat capability. Their command and resupply system has been disrupted," senior military official Andrei Kartopolov told Russian news agencies.

Kartapolov said the strikes -- which targeted the provinces of Hama, Idlib, Latakia, Damascus, Aleppo and Deir Ezzor -- had destroyed a bridge over the Euphrates River used for moving supplies to fighters from neighbouring Iraq.

Since the start of the campaign, Russian planes have carried out 934 sorties that have destroyed 819 "terrorist targets", including command centers, ammunition depots and training camps, Kartopolov said.