Russia will escalate Syria offensive as talks falter
Foreign minister makes it clear that the air campaign will go on with or without talks
UN-mediated peace talks on Syria came to a stop in Geneva yesterday as opposition delegates expressed outrage at an offensive around Aleppo by President Bashar al-Assad's forces with Russian air support. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura insisted that the halt was temporary and talks would resume on February 25. Salem al-Meslet of the opposition High National Committee accused Moscow of using negotiations as "cover to impose its military solution on the ground". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ruled out a halt to the aerial bombing campaign "until the terrorists are defeated". By yesterday, Russian air strikes had helped Assad's forces encircle Aleppo and cut off supply lines from Turkey.
Our judgement
With an increasingly capable but financially unsustainable military operation in place, Lavrov is articulating Russian strategy in blunt terms: the air campaign supports Assad's territorial advance and is non-negotiable. Peace talks are only a secondary objective, and Moscow plans to dictate the participant list, in part by crushing rebel groups it does not like. Defeating the Islamic State group looks increasingly irrelevant to Moscow's discussion of its tactical aims, focused instead on the western side of Syria.
See SYRIA: Russia risks mission creep as rebels dig in - December 16, 2015.