Britain and France sought to persuade the European Union on Monday to condemn Russia's devastating air campaign in Syria and pave the way for imposing more sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad's government, reports Reuters.
After a weekend of US-led diplomacy that failed to find a breakthrough, EU foreign ministers met in Luxembourg to call for an end to the bombing of rebel-held east Aleppo, where 275,000 people are trapped, and to rush humanitarian aid into the city.
"The pressure [on Russia] must be strong," France's foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said. "The more the European Union shows unity and determination, the more we can move forward in what is a moral obligation: to stop the massacre of the population of Aleppo," he told reporters.
But the bloc is split over strategy towards Russia, its biggest energy supplier, with divisions about how harsh any criticism of Moscow should be and whether there was ground for also putting Russians under sanctions.
Britain and France want to put another 20 Syrians under travel bans and asset freezes, suspecting them of directing attacks on civilians in Aleppo, in addition to the EU's existing sanctions list and its oil and arms embargo.
Paris and London have also raised the prospect of sanctions on 12 Russians involved in the Syrian conflict, adding them to the EU's list of some 200 people that also includes three Iranians, diplomats told Reuters.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who held talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday in London, said Russia's Aleppo bombing "shames humanity" and called Russia the Syrian government's "puppeteers."