Russia plays dual role in rebel exit from Syria's Ghouta

Beirut: Through a combination of military pressure and deal-making, Syrian regime ally Russia has played a crucial role in helping the government gain the upper hand against rebels being evacuated from Eastern Ghouta.
Russian warplanes have been spotted soaring in the skies above the battered former rebel bastion near Damascus and stand accused of hitting a school and using incendiary weapons during the five-week assault.
Russian warplanes have been spotted soaring in the skies above the battered former rebel bastion near Damascus and stand accused of hitting schools and using incendiary weapons during the five-week assault.
Moscow's military personnel have also directly overseen evacuations of rebels and civilians from two encircled opposition zones in the enclave, and they are now locked in talks over the third and final pocket.
Syrian troops and their allies launched their all-out assault on Eastern Ghouta on February 18, seeking to oust the armed opposition from its strategic perch on the edge of the capital.
More than 1,600 civilians have been killed in the assault, and tens of thousands of people have fled. 
Long a backer of Syria's regime, Russia has played two essential roles in the onslaught, said Nawar Oliver, military analyst at the Omran Institute. 
"That of the attacker at the start of the campaign, as it worked to accelerate the regime's victory and help it achieve its military goals," Oliver said. 
"Then, the role of the negotiator, the guarantor, protecting itself from international pressure and stopping the regime forces from bleeding out," he added. 
Since its air force intervened in Syria's war in September 2015, Moscow has helped its ally President Bashar al-Assad win back large parts of the country.
On February 20, two days after a volley of rocket fire on Ghouta announced the launch of the regime's offensive, Russia reportedly carried out bombing raids on the enclave.

'Incendiary weapons'  
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the air strikes hit a key hospital in the rebel-held town of Arbin and were the first Russian raids in three months on Ghouta. 
The Kremlin says it has been helping Syria's government "finish off" fighters in Ghouta, but has denied carrying out air strikes against civilians.
The Observatory also said Russian warplanes were suspected to be behind a deadly raid on a school on March 19 and another using "incendiary weapons" on March 22, also in the Arbin area.
The Kremlin denied it targeted residential areas or used such munitions.
As international outcry mounted over the regime's onslaught, Moscow announced a daily five-hour "humanitarian pause" in the area from February 27 to allow civilians to leave through "corridors" to regime-held territory.
Russian military police deployed at a checkpoint just outside of the enclave, AFP reporters said, where posters of Russia's President Vladimir Putin appeared next to images of his Syrian counterpart Assad.
The enclave's terrified and hungry residents did not take up the offer at first, but after regime troops advanced and bombardment intensified, they starting fleeing by the thousands.

Military police 
Moscow implemented a similar strategy in late 2016 in second city Aleppo, setting up such "corridors" to encourage civilians to empty the rebel-held eastern half.
Just like then, Russia has set up live feeds of the corridors showing people fleeing Ghouta.
Since mid-February, the regime air and ground assault has whittled down opposition-held territory in Eastern Ghouta to three pockets, each held by different rebel groups.
Surrounded in their last holdouts, opposition fighters in two of these agreed to Russia-brokered evacuation deals for the town of Harasta and a southern pocket including Arbin.
Since March 22, Russian military police -- dressed in khaki camouflage and matching headgear -- have been overseeing hundreds of fighters, their relatives, and other civilians leave these areas.
Before buses of evacuees set off, Russian soldiers register the names of passengers and look on as Syrian troops inspect bags and rebels' weapons. 
Some of the Russians communicate in a broken mixture of Arabic, Russian and English, AFP correspondents have said. Others chat away with passengers in fluent Arabic.
Russian military vehicles then accompany them on their way to the northwestern province of Idlib, the last to remain largely outside regime control.
Talks are ongoing for a third pocket around Horouta's main town of Douma, the Observatory has said, and could see rebels put down their weapons and stay, while Russian military deploy in the town.