syria
© AP Photo/ Lefteris Pitarakis, File
The United States spent a whole year bombing the desert instead of hitting terrorist targets in Syria, the head of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee wrote on Friday.

"[Senator John] McCain accused us of striking out at US-trained insurgents... However, since they have either run away or joined al-Qaeda, hitting them is a mission impossible," Alexei Pushkov wrote on his Twitter account.

In an interview with France's Europe 1 Radio Pushkov said that the Russian aerial campaign in Syria would take three to four months.

"The US-led coalition spent a whole year pretending they were striking ISIL targets but where are the results of these strikes?" Pushkov wondered.

The White House had earlier said that the Russian air forces was targeting areas in Syria where ISIL militants were nowhere in sight.

Besides, John McCain, chairman of the Senate's Armed Services Committee, said that he could "absolutely confirm" that Russian air strikes had hit Free Syrian Army recruits who had been armed and trained by the US, a claim that was later denied by the Pentagon.

Briefing reporters in Moscow on Wednesday, a defense ministry spokesman said that the Russian air force had flown twenty sorties targeting ISIL military equipment, communication facilities, arms depots, ammunition and fuel supplies — and did not hit civilian infrastructure or areas nearby.