The Russian military has offered Syrian rebels safe passage out of eastern Ghouta, setting out a proposal to let the insurgents surrender their last major stronghold near Damascus to President Bashar Assad's forces, which fighters have so far rejected.
The Russian Defense Ministry said rebels could leave with their families and personal weapons through a secure corridor out of eastern Ghouta, where Moscow-backed government forces have made rapid gains in a fierce assault.
The Russian proposal did not specify where the rebels would go, but the terms echo previous evacuation deals under which insurgents have ceded ground to Assad and departed to opposition-held territory in the north near the Turkish border.
"The Russian Reconciliation Center guarantees the immunity of all rebel fighters who take the decision to leave eastern Ghouta with personal weapons and together with their families," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Vehicles would "be provided, and the entire route will be guarded," it added.
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres on Tuesday voiced concern about attacks in eastern Ghouta which "reportedly claimed the lives of more than 100 people" on Monday, as well as reports of shelling of Damascus.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the besieged enclave of satellite towns and rural areas on the outskirts of Damascus in one of the fiercest bombing campaigns of the seven-year war.
The United Nations believes 400,000 people are trapped inside the enclave where food and medical supplies were already running out before the intense airstrikes began two weeks ago.
Damascus and Moscow have pressed on with the campaign despite a U.N. Security Council demand for a cease-fire, arguing that the rebel fighters they are targeting are members of banned terrorist groups who are unprotected by the truce. The Security Council will meet on Wednesday to discuss the failed cease-fire.
The offensive appears to have followed the tactics Assad and his allies have used at other key points in the war: laying siege to rebel-held areas, subjecting them to bombardment, launching a ground assault and offering passage out to civilians who flee and fighters who withdraw.
Wael Alwan, the spokesman for Failaq al-Rahman, one of the main rebel groups in eastern Ghouta, said Russia was "insisting on military escalation and imposing forced displacement" on the people of eastern Ghouta, which he called "a crime."
Alwan, who is based in Istanbul, also told Reuters there had been no contact with Russia about the proposal.
The Syrian army has captured more than a third of the enclave in recent days, threatening to slice it in two. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor says government bombardment of the area has killed 800 people since Feb. 18, including 80 people killed on Monday alone.
Assad said on Sunday the Syrian army would continue the push into eastern Ghouta, which government forces and allied militia have encircled since 2013. On Tuesday, Syria's state news agency said troops captured the village of Muhamadiya at the edge of the enclave.
Also on Tuesday, a Russian military transport plane crashed in Syria, killing all 39 people on board, Russian officials said. The incident sharply raised the death toll from the Kremlin's intervention in the Syrian war.
President Vladimir Putin, who is running for re-election later this month, declared in December that the Russian mission in Syria was largely completed, but casualties continue to mount.
The Kremlin said in a statement that the plane, a Soviet-designed An-26, crashed at Russia's Hemeimeem Air Base in the Latakia Governorate. The cause may have been a technical malfunction, the Kremlin said.
"According to the latest updates, the An-26 transport aircraft, which crashed while landing at Hemeimeem Air Base, was carrying 33 passengers and six crew. All of them were members of the Russian Armed Forces. The crew and the passengers were killed," Interfax news agency quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying.
