The Russian Defense Ministry said that there would be a daily three-hour ceasefire in the war-torn country’s northern city of Aleppo, starting today, to allow humanitarian convoys to enter the city safely. “To guarantee full security of humanitarian convoys entering into Aleppo, there will be ‘humanitarian windows’ established from 10 in the morning to one in the afternoon local time starting tomorrow when all military action, air and artillery strikes will be halted,” said Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, Head of Russia’s armed forces Main Op. HQ. Rudskoi also noted in his briefing that some 7,000 heavily armed militants of the Islamist ‘Jabhat Fatah al-Sham’ were amassing southwest of Aleppo for the past week and were still being joined by new fighters.
In response to the Russian announcement, the United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien said that he is willing to consider Russia’s planned three-hour daily truce in Aleppo, but that a 48-hour pause in fighting was needed to meet all humanitarian needs in the embattled Syrian city. “At all times I will look at any kind of suggestion which enables humanitarian aid to be delivered.” / “To meet that capacity of need you need two (road) lanes and you need to have about 48 hours to get sufficient trucks in,” said O’Brien. Aleppo, which was the largest Syrian city prior to the five-and-a-half-year conflict, is currently split into rebel and government-held sectors. The rebel-held east, where about 250,000 people are thought to be living, came under siege in early July after government forces cut the Castello Road, the main supply route into the district. Since then government forces, backed by Iran, its proxies and Russia have been waging intensive battles with both Western backed rebels, as well as Jihadist organizations.