**Update** officials have now confirmed that Russia has indeed cut the “deconflicting” line between them and the United States in Syria.
It's official: Russia suspends communications hotline w/US aimed at deconflciting US & Russian forces on ground & in the air in #Syria
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 8, 2017
Things are moving very quickly in the ongoing Syria crisis.
As you know, last week, President Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to fire Tomahawk missiles at an air base in Syria, as a response for the alleged chemical attack by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Fox reported that the air base was largely destroyed.
Then, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the U.S. attack:
Russian President Vladimir Putin “regards the strikes as aggression against a sovereign nation,” his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, noting that the president believes the strikes were carried out “in violation of international law, and also under an invented pretext.”
While it’s too early to tell, the situation may be escalating with Russia. They have reportedly cut off a major de-escalation communications line with the U.S., meant to keep our forces from hitting each other over the skies of Syria:
The move is in response to U.S. airstrikes on a Syrian airfield carried out in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime.
“Russia suspends the Memorandum of Understanding on Prevention of Flight Safety Incidents in the course of operations in Syria signed with the US,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday.
Russia and the United States set up the so-called deconfliction line in October 2015 after Russian air forces intervened in the Syrian civil war.
This was the very communications channel President Trump used to warn Russia of the incoming missiles over Syria.
This is a breaking story.