Russia said the document infringed the
council rule, allowing countries 24 hours to consider the final wording.
The US dismissed this as a "made-up
alibi", saying Russia wanted to preserve recent military gains by Syrian
government troops in Aleppo.
The army are reported to have seized more
parts of rebel-held east Aleppo.
If confirmed, that would mean the
government had recaptured about 70% of the rebel-controlled area in just over a
week.
More than 100,000 people may be under
siege in districts still under rebel control, where food supplies are exhausted
and there are no functioning hospitals.
On Monday, Russia and China – both veto-wielding council members, voted
against the draft submitted jointly by Egypt, New Zealand and Spain.
Venezuela also voted "No", while
Angola abstained.
The other 11 UN Security Council members
backed the resolution.
Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said the
draft had not been given the traditional 24 hours for it to be analysed.
He added that the vote should have been
postponed until a meeting of Russian and US experts on Tuesday or Wednesday in
Geneva.
US deputy envoy to the UN, Michele Sison,
accused Russia of using a "made-up alibi".
"We will not let Russia string along
the Security Council," she added.
French envoy Francois Delattre accused
Moscow of having "decided to take Aleppo regardless of the human
cost" of a military victory,
The UK's representative Matthew Rycroft
said that in vetoing the resolution, Russia and its supporters "have also
held to ransom the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and
children currently enduring hell in Aleppo".
This is the sixth time in five years that
Russia has used its veto power to block a draft resolution on Syria.
Russia, a key ally of Syria's President
Bashar al-Assad, has been carrying out air strikes against rebels since
September 2015.
Aleppo was once Syria's largest city and
its commercial and industrial hub before the uprising against President Assad
began in 2011.
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