The Russian President has immediately sent his Admiral Grigorovich frigate - armed with cruise missiles and a self-defence system - from the Black Sea to dock in Syria.

It will pass through the east Mediterranean waters where the USS Ross and USS Porter fired the 59 Tomahawk missiles that pounded Assad's al-Shayrat military airfield near Homs in the early hours of Friday.

The Russian leader regarded the U.S. action as 'aggression against a sovereign nation' on a 'made-up pretext' and as a cynical attempt to distract the world from civilian deaths in Iraq, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying.

'We call upon the UN Security Council to hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss the situation,' the foreign ministry in Moscow said in a statement, calling the strike a 'gross... violation of international law.'

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Syria’s state agency SANA claimed that the missiles killed nine civilians, including four children, even though the bombarded the airbase in the middle of the night.

Putin said the missile strikes broke international law and has halted an agreement with the US aimed at avoiding clashes between their forces in the skies over Syria.

This morning, he diverted a warship to protect the Syrian coast and vowed to bolster Bashar al-Assad's missile defences against further US strikes as fears grew the crisis could topple into war between Russia and the West.