What changed was not the scale of need, which has actually increased since the UN aid program began and Syria’s economy fell into crisis. Nor has violence gone down. What changed was Russia, which has been exploiting its veto power at the UN Security Council to systematically shut aid gateways, one after the other.
The aid flows to regions held by Syrian opposition forces, which are being systematically starved out by dictatorial president Bashar al-Assad. Russia considers Assad an ally, and so any aid—even for humanitarian reasons—is an affront to his rule. Accordingly, last January, during negotiations scheduled to determine the extension of aid access, Russia forced the closure of a crossing from northern Iraq and another from Jordan. Both had been providing a lifeline to northeastern and eastern Syria. Then last July, Russia used the same tactic to shut down the Bab al-Salam crossing from Turkey into northern Aleppo.
That left only one road for aid to arrive, via Turkey, at Bab al-Hawa. And now the Russians have already signaled their intention to shut that as well when it comes up for a vote in the UN Security Council this summer. If they succeed, it will cut off UN cross-border aid altogether—and all but sever northwestern Syria from the global community, and from any semblance of help.