Putin defies UN vote for Syria truce
VLADIMIR PUTIN defied the UN yesterday by ordering a series of brief daily ceasefires in the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta but rejecting a 30-day truce across all of Syria.
Nine days into an intensive bombing campaign that has killed more than 500 civilians, the Russian president said, starting today, he would allow for a daily five-hour “humanitarian pause”, lasting from 9am to 2pm each day.
He also said Russia would begin setting up a “humanitarian corridor” to allow some of the 400,000 civilians inside Eastern Ghouta to leave the area for regime-held neighbourhoods.
“On the instructions of the Russian president, with the goal of avoiding civilian casualties in Eastern Ghouta, from Feb 27 from 9am to 2pm there will be a humanitarian pause,” said Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister.
Mr Putin’s order came two days after all 15 members of the UN Security Council, including Russia, voted unanimously to impose a month-long nationwide ceasefire across Syria.
The UN also demanded that combatants allow aid to be delivered to besieged areas and for medical teams to evacuate the wounded. Mr Putin’s instructions did not appear to address either of those issues.
Even a brief lull in the fighting could go some way to easing the suffering in Eastern Ghouta, giving residents time to leave makeshift basement bomb shelters to find food and supplies.
But people were deeply sceptical as the news of Mr Putin’s ceasefire order spread. “The Russians are laughing at the world,” said one medic. “They don’t care about human blood and they don’t care about the resolution of the UN Security Council.” Haitham, a father sheltering in a basement with his four-year-old son, shrugged at the news. “We don’t rely much on the dead conscience of Russia,” he said.
Activists said bombing was slightly less intense yesterday than it had been before the UN Security Council vote on Saturday. But aerial attacks continued and ground fighting still raged between rebel forces and regime troops.
An air strike on the Douma neighbourhood killed 10 people, nine of whom were from one family, according to the Syria Observatory for Human Rights. Rescuers were unable to find several bodies beneath the rubble.
The observatory said a young boy died on Sunday night from a suspected regime chemical weapons attack, which injured another 13 people. Russia denied the regime had used chemical weapons and said rebels may have staged the attack as “a provocation”.
Earlier yesterday, Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, demanded the ceasefire be implemented on the terms laid out by the security council.
He said: “Security Council resolutions are only meaningful if they are effectively implemented. That is why I expect the resolution to be immediately implemented and sustained.”
A video posted online by a member of the Tiger Forces, a special forces unit involved in the attack on Eastern Ghouta, gave a sense of the mood among regime troops. Crouching on a balcony he gestured towards smoke rising from air strikes on the besieged suburb.
“Yes, there was a meeting in the security council but what’s important is that Ghouta is behind me and the Syrian Arab Army will liberate it,” he said.