Putin’s Syria – An Assessment

The U.N. Security Council Resolution 2401 has been adopted unanimously to initiate a 30-day cease-fire in Syria, demanding parties to Syria’s seven years long conflict to cease hostilities with immediate effect. The month long hiatus was implemented to ensure a “durable humanitarian pause” to enable weekly humanitarian aid deliveries and medical evacuations of the critically sick and wounded, after the country witnessed its bloodiest trajectory of violence in January 2018, to date.

It is a striking revelation that it was Russia, the most influential player in the Syrian quagmire that resisted the temporary hiatus proposed by the UNSC for days and allegedly attempted to water down all attempts to an ‘immediate start’ to the cease-fire or for unfettered humanitarian access ‘without delay’, as put forward by the US and other states in unison. World leaders like French President Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Merkel had to reportedly write directly to Russian President Putin, in intense negotiations with the latter to not let Russia use its veto power to blockade the temporary truce.

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