I wanted to understand the reason and the areas covered by the 'De-Escalation Agreement' agreed upon at Astana by Russia, Iran, Turkey and representatives from the Syrian Government and Rebels (
those who didn't leave/get thrown out) so I drew up some maps. I meant for this to just be a summary for the
conflict shitpile but it ended up being more involved.
SHORT VERSION: Despite being listed as four zones, almost all active fronts between the government and AQ rebels (specifically US and Turkey-backed groups) are marked for 'De-Escalation'. For the most part rebel supply lines in affected zones are cut, so chances of rebels restocking and resupplying militarily are low.
The agreement here is very clever in a political sense. The US and Gulf states will find it hard to argue against the creation of 'Safe Zones' they've been clamouring for for years, but this is an agreement between the Government and Rebels with external states as guarantors - not zones where disarmament is enforced by an outside party, so they have no reason or excuse to deploy their own military hardware.
The reason the rebels have wanted 'safe zones' in the past is not for humanitarian reasons as they so often state; they want American military forces to protect them from the SAA like in Libya - that will not happen under this agreement, so their two options are to either accept humanitarian support and allow civilians to evacuate, eventually moving toward a political resolution or to drop the mask entirely and refuse to join the ceasefire, proving to the world they never really cared about Syrians in the first place.
As mentioned above it's unlikely that the rebels will be able to use the ceasefires to resupply, and in a military sense the locations chosen do not benefit the SAA or RUAF in any specific way - they can't be (reasonably) accused of masking military tactics as a peace process.
Specifics:
This is the document presented at the Astana talks listing the conditions. These zones are to remain in effect for six months, at which point they will be reviewed.
I made some shit maps:
1. Where the deconfliction zones are:
2. Same map overlaid with faction control data from
SouthFront (yes I know it's bad, should be readable though):
Link to raw SouthFront area control mapYou'll notice that all fronts against ISIS are open as they're totally unaffected by the agreement, as is the front against the rebels in the countryside east of Damascus - I would suspect that this is because that area is largely rural or sparsely populated, meaning that there are fewer civilians and less need for the humanitarian services that are the basis for these zones.
