The ability of Russian President Vladimir Putin to influence events in Syria will come to bear at 9 a.m. local time Tuesday (2 a.m. ET) when a five-hour ceasefire he ordered is due to start in Eastern Ghouta.
Russia has ordered an humanitarian corridor to open to allow people to be evacuated, but there was no mention of whether medical or food supplies would be able to enter the area.
Inside, some 400,000 people are under siege, having endured relentless bombardment from a Syrian government offensive from the air and recently also on the ground. The offensive is now entering its second week.
Russia is the Syrian regime’s key ally in a civil war that has plagued the country for almost seven years, with heavy fighting now centered on Eastern Ghouta, an area near Damascus.
Russian intervention — with troops and weaponry — has helped tilt the balance in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s favor.
A United Nations resolution on Saturday calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria appears to have done little to halt the fighting. It wasn’t clear from the UN resolution when the ceasefire was meant to come into effect, or how it would be enforced.
‘The proof will be in the silence’
Britain’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Allen, said that Russia’s announcement of a five-hour pause in fighting was not considered to be the implementation of the ceasefire.
“But it does show that it can be implemented. So Russia can implement if it chooses to. If it’s able to do a five-hour pause, it’s able to do a 24-hour pause,” he told reporters. “So it’s up to Russia whether it wants to implement fully the resolution that it signed up to and voted for, or whether it wants to play cynical games.”
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN Secretary General, said aid workers were waiting to enter the area.
“We stand ready as soon as the conditions are safe for truck drivers, humanitarian workers to roll into these areas,” Dujarric said during the daily UN press briefing. “We need to ensure that there are no roadblocks, whether physical or administrative. Whether five hours is enough or is not enough is a difficult question to answer. Five hours is better than no hours.”
Asked if rebel groups had indicated if they would go along with the Russian proposal of five hours, Dujarric said: “The proof will be in the silence. Once the guns go silent we know.”
The use of chlorine gas
The White House on Monday condemned the Syrian regime’s actions in Eastern Ghouta.
“Syria is terrorizing hundreds of thousands of civilians,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. “The regime’s use of chlorine gas as a weapon only intensifies this. The United States calls for an immediate end to offensive operations.”
Several people in the suburb were treated for exposure to chlorine gas, Syrian opposition groups said, as air strikes and artillery fire from the regime continued on Sunday.
The Syrian opposition-run Rural Damascus Health Directorate said the people were admitted to medical facilities showing signs that were consistent with exposure to “toxic chlorine gas.”
In a statement, RDHD said “the smell of people in the area, ambulance drivers, and victims all had the clear and known smell of chlorine gas.”
A tweet from the Syrian American Medical Society said that 16 patients, including six children, were treated in a hospital “suffering from symptoms indicative to exposure to chemical compounds.”
Images obtained by CNN show men and children receiving treatment, some of them using oxygen masks.
The White Helmets, a volunteer rescue group, said in a tweet that one child was killed in a chlorine gas attack in the city.
CNN is unable to independently verify claims that chlorine was used as a weapon in Eastern Ghouta.
Both sides of the conflict have in the past accused one another of the use of chlorine as a weapon, and the government has repeatedly denied claims that it has done so.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters that allegations of a chlorine attack were a “hoax,” and attacked the White Helmets for promoting what he described as “fake stories.” The Russian Defense Ministry alleged that “terrorists” hiding in Eastern Ghouta have chemical substances which “might be used for provocations.”
Not the first ceasefire in Syria’s war
There have been many ceasefires in Syria’s past, dating back to 2011 when war first broke out. In 2011 Syria signed an Arab League proposal to stop the fighting between government forces and protestors, but violence continued. In February 2016 the US and Russia coordinated a partial ceasefire near Aleppo and Raqqa but that fell apart only days after the truce took effect.
In September 2016, the US and Russia brokered a pact to pause violence after months of back and forth talks to allow for humanitarian aid in cities enduring Syrian government airstrikes.
In December 2016 Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Syrian government declared a ceasefire throughout much of the country.
Last year a ‘four zone’ ceasefire was declared for areas including Idlib province, Eastern Ghouta, and in southern Syria.
Last month Turkey disregarded calls from France and other countries for a ceasefire in the northern Syrian area of Afrin where Turkish forces are battling Kurdish militias allied with the US, as well as in Idlib and Ghouta.
It is not clear whether this latest call for a cessation of hostilities will be any more successful.
Terrorist groups not included
The UN ceasefire resolution, which passed unanimously on Saturday, noted that the truce “shall not apply to military operations against the Islamic State,” al Nusra and other groups associated with them, or those deemed terrorist organizations by the UN Security Council.
The main rebel units actively holding territory in Eastern Ghouta are the Islamist Jaish al Islam and Faylaq al Rahman, who have taken part in peace negotiations in the past. According to activists there are small pockets of Hayat Tahrir al Sham, an al-Qaeda affiliate, still in the area.
Both the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Syrian state-run media SANA reported that shells hit regime-controlled areas in Damascus on Saturday morning. “Armed groups positioned in Eastern Ghouta on Saturday targeted with more than 55 mortar and rocket shells with sniper fire the residential neighborhoods in Damascus and its countryside, injuring a number of civilians and causing material damage,” SANA said.
SANA reported that 21 rocket shells were fired on residential neighborhoods in Damascus City and other areas in the capital.