Petraeus accuses Putin of trying to resurrect the Russian Empire in Syria

The real danger facing the United States today is Russia’s military intervention in Syria, retired US General David Petraeus warned.

The former commanding general of US forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan said during a testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to revive the Russian Empire in Syria.

“I think that what Vladimir Putin would like to do is resurrect the Russian empire,” he said.

Petraeus likened the situation in Syria with a deadly nuclear disaster.

“Syria is a geopolitical Chernobyl – spewing instability and extremism over the region and the rest of the world,” Petraeus said, referencing the 1986 nuclear meltdown in the former Soviet Union.

“Like a nuclear disaster, the fallout from the meltdown of Syria threatens to be with us for decades, and the longer it is permitted to continue, the more severe the damage will be,” he added.

US President Barack Obama met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for an hour and a half in New York City on the side lines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Monday.

An official source in the US administration said that Obama and Putin disagreed about the role Syrian regime President Bashar Al-Assad should play in finding a solution to the conflict.