"On Thursday, the UN expressed concern over the intensification of fighting and destruction in the province of Idlib in Northwest Syria, the country's last major region controlled by insurgents, where attacks by Russian-backed Syrian forces endangered the lives of tens of thousands of civilians," reports The New York Times.

UN humanitarian assistance personnel also called for an urgent humanitarian break on Thursday in the fighting around East Huta - a rebel-held suburb of Damascus, where for a long time there were about 400,000 sieges. civilians, the article says..

The attack on Idlib forced more than 100 thousand. the man left these places for security reasons from early December, said UN adviser on the humanitarian situation in Syria Jan Egeland after the meeting of the humanitarian working group in Geneva on Thursday.

"Egeland did not confirm the reports of some investigative human rights defenders that government troops and their allies attacked civilians and hospitals in Idlib, but, he said, there appears to have been no action taken to avoid civilian casualties," - the article says.

Both the Syrian and Russian armed forces insist that they attack only militants.

But, according to Egeland, at least two medical facilities serving thousands of patients in Idlib were hit by nine attacks on medical centers or medical workers in Idlib and East Gut in the last eight days. These attacks are a continuation of attacks on medical institutions: international agencies recorded more than 100 such cases in 2017, he added..

Russia has repeatedly stated in recent months that it is winding down military operations in a country where the war has been going on for almost seven years. "However, the offensive against the insurgents in Idlib seems to suggest the opposite," writes the publication.

"Russia's aggressive reaction to Idlib may partly reflect her anger at attempts to attack Russian bases in Syria last weekend with the help of armed drones," the authors of the article. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the drones were released by rebels in Idlib.

The intensifying battles in Idlib threaten to frustrate Russia's attempt to organize a meeting of the opposing sides of the Syrian conflict in Sochi at the end of this month, the newspaper notes..