President Barack Obama says the Syrian civil war is not going to become a "proxy war" between the U.S. and Russia, as the two countries conduct airstrikes on different groups inside Syria.
"This is not some superpower chessboard contest," Obama said Friday at a White House news conference.
At the same time, he was critical of Russia's military engagement in Syria, calling it a "recipe for disaster."
"[Russian President Vladimir Putin] had to go into Syria not out of strength, but out of weakness because his client, [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] was crumbling and it was insufficient for him [Putin] to send him arms and money. Now, he's got to put in his own planes and his own pilots."