Russia terms UK foreign secretary's comments "Russophobic hysteria"

Coming down heavily on British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Russia said Wednesday that his comments calling for investigating Moscow for war crimes in Aleppo were "Russophobic hysteria".

"There were no Russian planes in the area of the aid convoy to Aleppo. That is a fact," the CNN quoted Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, as saying.

Johnson's speech was "a storm in a glass of muddy London water", he added.

During a Commons debate on Tuesday Johnson has said that those responsible for war crimes in Syria would eventually face charges before the international criminal court. He also called for demonstrations by anti-war protesters outside the Russian embassy in London.

Meanwhile air raids in eastern Aleppo using powerful bunker-buster bombs which resumed on Tuesday

Doctors said they had documented 34 dead and 216 injured on Tuesday alone, adding that the total number was likely to be higher as some families retrieved their dead from bombarded sites without taking them to local hospitals.

One doctor described the bombing on Tuesday as akin to "resurrection day".

The resumption of intensive airstrikes by Bashar al-Assad's regime and its Russian allies followed several days of relative calm in which the government reiterated its demands for rebels in the eastern districts of Syria's commercial capital to lay down their arms and abandon the city, and for civilians to flee to the regime-held western half.

The see-saw of destruction appears aimed at sowing division among members of the opposition and civilians, about 250,000, still living in the area, pressuring them with the prospect of prolonged suffering to abandon their redoubt.