Russia and Syria clashed with the U.S. and its Western allies Wednesday over responsibility for the failure of a cease-fire to take hold in Syria as the U.N. said humanitarian convoys are ready to head to 10 locations including besieged eastern Ghouta near the capital Damascus.
The contentious Security Council meeting four days after members adopted a resolution demanding a cease-fire "without delay" for at least 30 days throughout Syria to deliver humanitarian aid and evacuate the critically ill and wounded reflected frustration and anger on both sides at the continued fighting and bombing.
U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock asked council members: "When will your resolution be implemented?" And U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman urged all 193 U.N. member states "to use their influence with the parties to ensure implementation of the cessation of hostilities."
Lowcock said convoys are ready to go to 10 besieged and hard-to-reach locations and warned that delivery of aid across conflict lines to millions of people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas throughout Syria "has totally collapsed."
"Unless this changes," he declared, "we will soon see even more people dying from starvation and disease than from the bombing and the shelling."
Russia ordered a five-hour daily humanitarian pause starting Tuesday to allow civilians to exit eastern Ghouta. But no civilians have left, and no humanitarian aid has entered.
Russia asked council members to support a presidential statement asking all countries to ensure that armed groups support the Russian humanitarian corridors.
The U.S., supported by other Western nations, objected because the statement did not reflect the resolution's demands, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because consultations were private.
Lowcock reiterated the International Committee of the Red Cross' assessment that it is impossible to deliver humanitarian aid in five hours, noting that it often takes convoys with all the required clearances a day just to get through checkpoints.
Kelley Currie, the U.S. ambassador for economic and social affairs, called a five-hour pause "cynical, callous, and in flagrant defiance of the demands" for a cessation of hostilities "for at least 30 days – every day, all day. Russia does not get to unilaterally rewrite the terms of the resolution they negotiated and they sat here and voted for," she said.
"Russia, Iran and the Assad regime are not even trying to hide their intentions," Currie told the council. "They are asking civilians to leave eastern Ghouta on the false premise that they can then attack anyone left in the area as much as they would like."
Sweden's deputy ambassador Carl Skau, speaking on behalf of resolution sponsors Sweden and Kuwait, also declared, "A five-hour cease-fire does not meet the requirements of the resolution."
"This resolution is not primarily about the evacuation of civilians, but demands humanitarian access to civilians and medical evacuations," he stressed to the council, a message repeated by Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia reminded the council that the resolution adopted Saturday also demands that all parties "engage immediately to ensure full and comprehensive implementation" of the cease-fire – and "underscores the need for the parties to agree on humanitarian pauses and truces."
He stressed that "any enduring pause must be preceded by an agreement of all parties for de-escalation."
"Demands to overnight, immediately halt hostilities attest to a failure to understand realities on the ground or a deliberate exploitation of human tragedy," Nebenzia said.
"Everything is being done" to ensure the effective operation of the five-hour daily pauses in eastern Ghouta, he said, blaming militants for using the pauses on Tuesday and Wednesday "to stage an onslaught."
In an exemption from the cease-fire, the resolution allows military attacks to continue against the Islamic State group, al-Qaida and the Nusra Front – targets Syria and Russia, as well as U.S.-backed forces, say they are pursuing.
Nebenzia said what is needed above all in eastern Ghouta is "to effectively neutralize" the Nusra Front, calling for cooperation to get rid of the extremist group.
He was sharply critical of the West, and especially the United States, for fancying themselves as "champions of humanity" and saying a cease-fire depends almost entirely on Russia and Syria.
"What is occurring right now is greatly reminiscent of the situation around eastern Aleppo when the West rolled out a horrendous wave of anti-Russian hysteria," Nebenzia said.
"Russia is daily undertaking efforts to ensure a cessation of hostilities, for humanitarian pauses to be established, to alleviate the plight of suffering civilians," he told council members.
"At least one of your countries, have you lifted a finger to do something? Have you had influence to bear on those whom you view as the moderate opposition? Have you told them to lay down their weapons?" Nebenzia asked.
Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari echoed Russia's criticism of the West telling the council "the main responsibility for ceasing hostilities is on groups that have influence on terrorist groups."
"We are supportive of the cease-fire, the cessation of hostilities with some conditions," he told reporters later. "We cannot do it alone. You need to have a commitment by the supporters of these terrorists in eastern Ghouta to implement the resolution, meaning stopping sending weapons."
Meanwhile, Syrian government forces launched a ground assault on the edge of the rebel-held eastern Ghouta enclave on Wednesday, seeking to gain territory despite a Russian plan for five-hour daily cease-fires.
Hundreds of people have died in 11 days of bombing of the eastern Ghouta. The onslaught has been one of the fiercest of Syria's civil war, now entering its eighth year.
While the Russian-backed truce has failed to provide any relief to the area, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia had managed to evacuate "quite a big group" of civilians, adding that that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had helped broker the evacuation. He did not say when the civilians had managed to leave.
State-run Anadolu news agency quoted Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin as saying Erdogan had asked for the evacuation of around 700 people from eastern Ghouta a month ago. Kalin said Russia told Turkey the civilians had been taken to southern Damascus a week later, despite Erdogan's request for them to receive treatment in Turkey.
Moscow and Damascus have accused rebels of shelling the corridor to prevent people leaving. The rebels deny this and say people will not depart eastern Ghouta because they fear the government.
Wednesday's ground assault targeted the Hawsh al-Dawahra area at the eastern edge of the enclave.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported advances by the government forces in the area, describing it as the resumption of an assault that first began on Feb. 25. It said rebels had inflicted heavy losses on government forces.
An official with one of the rebel groups in eastern Ghouta said fighters were battling to repel an attempted incursion and characterized the battle as "back and forth."
A commander in the military alliance that backs Assad said an elite unit of the Syrian army, the Tiger Force, was taking part in the assault and advances had been made.
France's foreign ministry called on Russia and Iran, Assad's other military ally, to exert "maximum pressure" on the Syrian government to implement the 30-day cease-fire.
But with no sign of decisive international pressure to stop the attack, eastern Ghouta appears on course to eventually meet the same fate as other areas won back by the government in lengthy, punishing assaults, where rebels and civilians who oppose Assad were finally evacuated in negotiated withdrawals.
Damascus appears to be applying tried and tested military means, combining air strikes and bombardment with ground assaults, as it did to recapture eastern Aleppo in 2016.
A senior Western diplomat said Russia appeared intent on a repeat of Aleppo in eastern Ghouta by evacuating the area and then killing "the terrorists even if it's not just Nusra [Front]."
A senior U.S. general on Tuesday accused Moscow of acting as "both arsonist and firefighter" by failing to rein in Assad.
Diplomatic sources said the U.N.'s chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, opened an investigation into attacks in eastern Ghouta to determine whether banned munitions, such as chlorine, were used.
The United States said it has evidence Syrian forces have used chlorine, which is permitted for civilian purposes but banned as a weapon, in attacks in eastern Ghouta and elsewhere.
U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood said Wednesday that Russia has violated its duty to guarantee the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile and prevent the Assad government from using poison gas.
Syria agreed to give up its stockpile of poison gas and join the international chemical weapons ban in 2013 under a Russian-brokered deal that averted U.S. retaliatory air strikes after a nerve gas attack killed hundreds of people in Ghouta.
Washington accused Damascus last year of again using nerve gas and carried out a round of airstrikes as punishment.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Syria had eliminated its poison gas stockpiles and described allegations it was still using chemical weapons as "absurd."
