Everything you need to know about the ceasefire agreed between Russia and the US that is due to start at sunset on Monday

What is the aim of the deal?

To bring a sustainable peace to war that has raged insatiably for five years and shows little sign of slowing. Syria’s war has become especially complex and destructive and could stay that way for many years yet. The effect outside Syria’s borders, of refugees and the creep of global terror, continues to raise the stakes.

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One concern for everyone involved has been the gradual blending of extremist groups among the mainstream anti-Assad rebels. The deal aims to disentangle this, isolating the extremists and providing aid to other groups. Russia and the US say this will ensure the mainstream groups are not bombed. For the first 48 hours, fighting was meant to stop in areas held by non-extremists and aid was supposed to be delivered to cities under siege.

Has the ceasefire worked so far?

Violence has dropped markedly across the country. Air strikes in particular have stopped, and the streets of Idlib, Damascus and Aleppo are now busier than for many months. However, aid deliveries, which were a key component of the plan, have not been allowed into opposition-held east Aleppo. Syrian troops have blocked UN trucks from entering the only access road. Syrian officials say all aid runs should be co-ordinated through Damascus. This is in contravention to the Russian/US deal. By Friday, Russia said that Syrian troops had moved back from the only access route, the Castello Road. The US said it could not confirm this. A continued hold-up in aid will put serious stress on the deal.

Why did it take so long to broker?

Trust has been impossible to build. Every previous multilateral attempt at a ceasefire has failed. Neither side has been willing to share power. The Syrian regime has preferred starvation sieges and widespread bombing of civilian areas to negotiations. The opposition has been unable to put forward a credible political alternative to rule Syria and failed to press home its early battlefield gains. Meanwhile, the goals of the foreign stakeholders in the conflict – Turkey, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US – are mostly in competition with each other.

Has it proven difficult to implement?

Russia and the US have had next to no common ground since Vladimir Putin sent his air force to prop up Assad in September 2015. The year since has seen Russia largely aim its firepower at opposition units, including US-vetted groups. It has at times also attacked Jabhat al-Nusra (which renamed itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham after it announced a split from al-Qaida) and Isis.

Russia’s aim has been to ensure that Assad cannot lose and to give the Syrian leader an advantage in subsequent negotiations. The US, meanwhile, has eschewed a lead role in the war, confining its involvement to defeating Isis in north-eastern Syria, using Kurdish forces as a proxy infantry supported by its air force.

Opposition groups are deeply sceptical of the deal. They say that neither superpower has acted in good faith. And they believe it favours Assad. Ousting the jihadis among them means giving up a layer of security that they don’t believe will be filled by either side.

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What does each side want?

The US has been pushing for far greater humanitarian aid into areas besieged by the Syrian regime, as well as a stop to the bombing. Aleppo and parts of Damascus are central to this. Russia says it is willing to spare non-extremist opposition groups, but wants to know where they are. A joint US/Russian operation is central to determining future targets and Russia has said it will rein in the Syrian air force. If calm persists, Moscow says moves could be made to a political transition, the form of which is not yet clear.

The opposition insists that civilian areas, which have been systematically targeted across much of the country, be spared, and that sieges of up to 18 rebel areas be lifted.

Is the ceasefire a path to a viable solution?

No political path is yet apparent, and this is another criticism of the deal. However, the ceasefire is being pitched as a trust-building measure, a necessary step before ways to put an end to the crisis can be meaningfully discussed. Previous summits in Geneva, where the Kerry/Lavrov pact was announced, have ended in spectacular failure. If the protagonists start to believe that outright victory is impossible, then there may be breathing space for negotiations. If the ceasefire holds, it could force that realisation. Therein lies its purpose.































