"All attempts by the rebels to break through in Aleppo have failed," the Russian Defense Ministry statement said. "They have no chance to break out of the city."

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement Nov. 2 that there were six corridors for civilians and sick people to leave eastern Aleppo. The statement said rebels could exit eastern Aleppo with their weapons via two corridors being set up, from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. Nov. 4, while warning that efforts to break the siege were doomed.

“What we have seen in the past with these humanitarian pauses is no aid gets in and people get bombed again,” Kirby said. “We will see what happens.”

“These humanitarian pauses are really nothing more than the Russians want to provide an opportunity for people to get out before they resume the bombing,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told journalists at the press briefing Nov. 2.

WASHINGTON — The United States expressed skepticism Nov. 2 after Russia said it would extend a pause in airstrikes on Aleppo until Nov. 4 so that civilians, the wounded and opposition fighters could leave the besieged city. But while the United States described the plan as recycled and insufficient, American officials have taken note of the fact that Russia has largely halted aerial bombardment in Aleppo’s old city since mid-October, even while no humanitarian aid has been permitted to be brought into rebel-held eastern Aleppo, which has been besieged for over three months.

Behind the scenes, diplomatic consultations have continued in Geneva and in the region on how to try to normalize the situation in Aleppo and get a cessation of hostilities back in place after a week-old US-Russia cease-fire deal collapsed Sept. 19 and was followed by intense Syrian and Russian bombardment of eastern Aleppo, which the UN estimates to have trapped 275,000 people. Notably, Turkey has expressed support for trying to get al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) members to leave rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

Turkey’s military and intelligence chiefs Gen. Hulusi Akar and Hakan Fidan held talks Nov. 1 in Russia with their Russian counterparts on how to normalize the situation in Aleppo, the Turkish military said.

"The subjects taken up in the talks were a settlement to the clashes in Syria and normalization of the situation in Aleppo, as well as continuing to develop coordination between the two countries with the aim of ... ending the threat from Daesh [Islamic State]," the Turkish military said in a Nov. 2 statement.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also met with Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) chief Riad Hijab in Doha, Qatar, on Nov. 1.

Both Turkey and the HNC are supportive of a prospective deal that would allow those needing medical care to be evacuated and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham fighters to leave eastern Aleppo, a member of the HNC, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor.

Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in London this week, said Russia should test an offer by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States to separate al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham rebels from other opposition fighters in Aleppo, but that would require an extended pause in bombing.

“There is a way to try to resolve this,” Kerry told an audience at Chatham House in London on Oct. 31, where he — along with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif — were the recipients of an award for negotiating the Iran nuclear deal.

“If Russia were to test the stated willingness of Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia and the United States to try to separate [Jabhat Fatah al-Sham] from the opposition, and if they would test it by standing back and not bombing for a period of time and give the legitimate opposition the opportunity to adhere to the [cease-fire] and separate from the true terrorists, then we could begin to get some, perhaps, cooperative breathing space where we might have an opportunity to be able to really put in place a [cease-fire] and, importantly, get to the negotiating table in Geneva,” Kerry said.

“I remain the eternal optimist and hopeful that we can still try to push to that somewhere in these next couple of months,” Kerry added. “We have two and a half months left in this administration, and we’re going to work till the last moment to try to do that. And we are engaged even now in some discussions to see whether or not that is possible.”

Kerry “has been very clear we are going to continue pursuing diplomatic [solution on Syria] until the president leaves office,” a US official, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor. “He is not going to stop what he has been doing. At the end of the day, we sit at the table with the different groups, including Russia and Iran, because they are there. We have to sit down with those people. We continue to remind them they committed to something they are not upholding.”

As to the pause in Russian bombing in Aleppo, the official said he can only speculate, but one theory is Russia may want to show Bashar al-Assad's regime what might happen if Russia stops supporting him.

Russia “basically props up the regime; it was on the ropes,” he said. The pause in bombing may “show Assad what happens if they abandon him. He would be in more trouble.”

As to the latest Russian offer for a humanitarian pause in Aleppo, the US official described it as “recycled” and noted that “zero access has been granted to the UN to provide aid in Aleppo.”

“Given the behavior of the Russians and Assad's regime, there is reason for the opposition to be skeptical about the humanitarian corridors, especially when they are expected to separate their fighters from the sick and wounded,” the US official said.

The bottom line, the US official said, is “people should not be forced to leave their homes to get food and medical care.”