Russia on Wednesday set the stage for a new battle over whether the UN Security Council should extend its authorization for humanitarian aid from Turkey to some 4 million people in northwestern Syria, which expires on January 10. According to Reuters.

A refugee child from SyriaPhoto: Alexandre Afonso / Alamy / Profimedia Images

The 15-member council’s approval is needed because Syrian authorities have not agreed to the operation, which has brought aid including food, medicine and shelter to an area of ​​Syria held by the opposition since 2014.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council in a report this month that aid access from Turkey was a “lifeline for millions” and renewed approval was essential, a “moral and humanitarian measure”.

Russia, which backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that began in 2011, says the UN operation violates Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

It says more aid should come from within the country, raising opposition fears that food and other aid could fall under government control.

“The humanitarian situation in Syria, to be very frank, creates a less favorable context for discussing the expansion of cross-border mechanisms,” Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasyl Nebenzia, told the Council.

“It’s not because we’re against helping ordinary Syrians… we’re more in favor of the world community helping all Syrians without discrimination, without politicization,” he said.

In his report to the Council, Guterres said aid deliveries from inside Syria “remain unable to replace the scope or scale of a large-scale UN cross-border operation”.

“Without United Nations cross-border access to the northwest, hunger will worsen, millions will risk losing shelter assistance and access to water will decrease,” Guterres said.

Nebenzya noted that Russia is not convinced that there is no alternative to delivering aid to Syria from Turkey.

In 2014, the US Security Council authorized the delivery of aid to opposition-held areas of Syria in Iraq, Jordan and two locations in Turkey. But veto-wielding Russia and China reduced it to a single border crossing in Turkey.