Russia, China veto at U.N. on Syria chemical weapons

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration accused Russia and China of “outrageous and indefensible” action Tuesday after they vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have imposed new sanctions on Syria for using chemical weapons against its own citizens.

In a sharply worded speech after the vote, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the message the council was sending to the world was that “if you are allies with Russia and China, they will cover the backs of their friends who use chemical weapons to kill their own people.”

Safronkov suggested that evidence was uncorroborated and came from “suspicious eyewitness accounts . . . armed opponents, sympathetic (nongovernmental organizations), media and also the so-called Friends of Syria.”