Russia has blocked a Western-led effort at the UN Security Council to condemn last week's deadly gas attack in Syria and push Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad to cooperate with international inquiries into the incident.
It's the eighth time during Syria's six-year-old civil war that Moscow has used its veto power on the Security Council to shield Assad's government.
In the latest veto on Wednesday, Russia blocked a draft resolution backed by the United States, France and Britain to denounce the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun and tell Assad's government to provide access for investigators and information such as flight plans.
The toxic gas attack on April 4 prompted the US to launch missile strikes on a Syrian air base and widened a rift between it and Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that trust had eroded between the two countries under US President Donald Trump.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson echoed that comment after meetings with Russian leaders in Moscow, saying that relations are at a low point with a low level of trust. Tillerson called for Assad to eventually relinquish power.
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, called on Moscow to stop protecting Assad, adding the US wants to work with Russia toward a political solution for Syria.
"Russia once again has chosen to side with Assad, even as the rest of the world, including the Arab world, overwhelmingly comes together to condemn this murderous regime," Haley told the 15-member Security Council.
"If the regime is innocent, as Russia claims, the information requested in this resolution would have vindicated them."
Russia's deputy UN envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, said the draft resolution laid blame prior to an independent investigation.
"I'm amazed that this was the conclusion. No one has yet visited the site of the crime. How do you know that?" he said.
Syria's government has denied responsibility for the gas attack in a rebel-held area of northern Syria that killed at least 87 people, many of them children.
A fact-finding mission from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is investigating the attack.
If it determines that chemical weapons were used, then a joint UN/OPCW investigation will look at the incident to determine who is to blame.
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