Russia and the US are close to an understanding on Aleppo, Syria, but Moscow is cautious regarding the outcome, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday. “We are close to reaching understanding now, but we have no overestimated expectations,” TASS quoted the diplomat as saying.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey and his US counterpart John Kerry have discussed ceasefire efforts in Aleppo, the US Department of State said. At the bilateral meeting in Hamburg, Germany, the diplomats focused on “ongoing multilateral efforts to achieve a cessation of hostilities in Aleppo,” and the delivery of humanitarian aid. Lavrov and Kerry are in Germany to take part in an OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Hamburg on December 8-9. “We exchanged some ideas about it [Aleppo] and we intend to connect in the morning to see where we are,” Kerry told reporters after the meeting in Hamburg. Lavrov did not issue a statement.

Nearly 150 civilians, most disabled or in need of medical care, were evacuated overnight from a hospital in Aleppo’s Old City, the first major evacuation from the eastern sector, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday. “These patients and civilians had been trapped in the area for days because of heavy clashes nearby and as the front line kept drawing closer,” said the head of the ICRC delegation in Syria, Marianne Gasser, who is in the city. Among those evacuated from Dar Al-Safaa hospital in the Old City – reclaimed by Syrian government forces on Tuesday – 118 patients were taken to three hospitals in the west of Aleppo and 30 people were taken to shelters, also in the west of the city. The evacuation was conducted jointly with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.RT news