MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, the chief of the Russian General Staff Main Operational Directorate said that water supplies to the Syrian capital of Damascus from the Wadi Barada region have been restored almost fully as some 2,500 militants have laid down their arms.
"Western humanitarian society, using every opportunity to criticize Damascus, remained silent or has been attributing the accident at the water pumping station [in the Wadi Barada] to the result of Syrian Air Force bombing. By the way, the situation around Aleppo, where the IS [Daesh] militants are now preventing normal water supply, is mainly the same," Gatilov said.
On Monday, a Russian delegation comprising State Duma lawmakers Dmitry Sablin, Sergey Gavrilov and Alexander Yushchenko, as well as Russian medics, arrived in Syria with a working visit.
Syrian President Bashar Assad held a meeting with the delegation members earlier this week. The lawmakers visited the city of Aleppo on Thursday.
On December 16, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Syrian army's operation to liberate militants-controlled eastern Aleppo ended, however, several hotbeds of militants' resistance remained.
On December 22, last militants left eastern Aleppo, thus the Syrian army gained full control over the city. Syrian President Bashar Assad called the liberation of Aleppo a "watershed moment."
