News from Aleppo:
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-army-hezbollah-intensify-southern-aleppo-assault/ describes some recent progress in the South of Aleppo. Yesterday they were taking an air defense base, today an adjacent hill, above on the outer side, to prevent an attack from the South-West toward Aleppo like the last one. Already a few days ago, at the time of the ceasefire, such preparations have been observed. There is also progress at the inner part of this South-West direction, in Sheikh Sa'eed and Al-'Amariyah some building blocks have been taken. This makes it more difficult for the terrorists to break out.
In West Ghouta, the town Khan Al-Sheih is now almost completely encircled, after Khan Al-Sheih's northwestern farms have been taken by the Syrian army.
Bad news: In East Ghouta, the terrorists have rejected a peace proposal, and the fighting has started again.
I have found an interesting article from Krutikov at
http://rusvesna.su/recent_opinions/1477179748 (in Russian only), with some interesting information:
First of all, a lot of interesting history, in particular, about a conflict inside the Assad clan. In the 1980s, there was an infight between Hafez Assad and his brother Rifat Assad. The end of this infight was that Rifat Assad emigrated, and is living now in Europe, mostly France and Spain. He is old now, but the point is that his sons control a large part of the "moderate opposition" the West relies on. In other words, what would be the optimal solution for the West would be the replacement of one Assad by another Assad, a more corrupt one.
It describes the split in the Syrian society as between Christians, Alewites, Shiites and eveything else, together with moderate Sunnis, on the one hand, and fundamentalist Sunnis on the other hand, and characterizes it as a fight where none of above sides can think about a compromise - the other side has to be eliminated.
It describes the 2006–11 drought, which has lead to a large scale economic escape inside the country, from rural areas into the big rich towns, and notes that these are the base of the large scale emigration during the war time - they were already without a homeland, already used to escape. A main reason for this drought was Turkey, building several power stations along the Euphrat, which lead to less water in the Euphrat, fatal for the agriculture along the Euphrat.
The other interesting point was his opinion about Assad. He was initially expected to be weak - and this was the main reason of his initial problems, in particular defections from the army and so on. But now he shown that he is not weak, and is accepted as a strong leader. And, in particular, as a Syrian leader, not a leader of some particular religious faction. This makes him quite unique now. He is open to those who oppose him for political or other reasons, but rigid against the Wahabi fanatics. Essentially the only person able to unify Syria now.
So, roughly, if one wants to end the war, instead of having at least 10 more years of war, one has to support Assad.
