Syrian forces takes all of Aleppo Old City

Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov late on Thursday as saying the Syrian army had halted military activity to let civilians leave rebel-held territory. He said humanitarian concerns were being voiced to slow the government’s war efforts.

Air strikes ceased and artillery fire was far less intense, according to an AFP correspondent in east Aleppo.

Yesterday the Kremlin said a potential US-Russia deal to allow rebels to safely elave Aleppo was still on the agenda.

Lavrov and his United States counterpart John Kerry briefly talked Thursday in the sidelines of the OSCE meeting, but a USA official said there was no progress or conclusions on Aleppo.

“Diplomacy has not delivered for the people of Aleppo”, she said. -Russian technical discussions in Geneva were still being worked out.

Since mid-November, the regime and its allies have stepped up their attacks on opposition-held parts of the city, reportedly causing hundreds of civilian deaths and thousands of injuries.

“It is with bitterness and frustration that we have to report that we have not been able even to evacuate the wounded”, Egeland said.

The rapid regime gains have left opposition fighters scrambling to defend the shrinking enclave they still control in Aleppo’s southeastern districts.

The Russian minister said, following his exchanges with Kerry, that USA and Russian officials would meet in Geneva on Saturday to continue discussions on the situation in eastern Aleppo. However, he provided no details about how the aid might get in or where it would go, and past agreements have fallen through before any aid could be delivered.

“There has to be a pause”, said Jan Egeland, head of the UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria. “This may be my last call”.

“Bombing is truly round the clock”, said Ziad Mohammed, a lawyer and father of three, still living in eastern Aleppo’s al-Mashhad neighborhood.

“In an interview with Syrian al-Watan newspaper Thursday, President Bashar al-Assad rejected the offer of a humanitarian ceasefire by the rebel opposition as his army tightened the noose on rebel-held part of the key city, according to Syrian state media”.

The Syrian president said the militants’ defeat in Aleppo would fully change the course of battle in Syria.

Meanwhile, a top lawmaker in Moscow said the odds are Aleppo will be “fully liberated” by the end of the year.

Russian Federation for its part objects to NATO’s eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War.

“We regret that in fact Russian Federation alone is trying to provide humanitarian aid to the civilians who’re leaving eastern Aleppo trying to escape militant captivity”.

The Syrian government and its allied forces reportedly control at least three-quarters of formerly rebel-held eastern Aleppo due to a massive military assault on the besieged area.

Corporal Ruslan Galitsky, who was deployed with Syrian forces in Aleppo, joined a long casualty list for Russian Federation this week, which already includes two medics killed in an apparent mortar hit on a hospital in Aleppo on Monday.

Overnight, more than 100 people who had been trapped amid heavy clashes in the city were taken to hospitals or shelters after being evacuated by Red Cross and Red Crescent aid workers.