(Newser)
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Hillary Clinton didn't mince words today when it came to Russia's persistent backing of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. The Russians "keep telling me they don't want to see a civil war," Clinton told youth leaders in Denmark today, according to Voice of America. "And, I have been telling them their policy is going to help contribute to a civil war."
"The Syrians are not going to listen to us," Clinton lamented. "They will listen, maybe, to the Russians. So we have to keep pushing them." But Russia refuses to be pushed. Yesterday it reaffirmed that it would oppose UN action, and today, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin said it wouldn't be "appropriate to talk about [that] position changing under someone's pressure." The comments come as Kofi Annan's long-troubled peace plan appears to be on the verge of complete collapse, though the Free Syrian Army today denied reports that it had set a deadline for the regime to comply, the BBC reports.
