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From airbase in Syria, Russia monitors fragile truce
HMEIMIM AIRBASE: Russian servicemen in sand-coloured fatigues sit by phones and computer screens at a base in northwestern Syria, monitoring a ceasefire often on the brink of collapse.
In coordination with a US centre in the Jordanian capital, soldiers at Russia's Hmeimim airbase record breaches of the truce -- brokered by Moscow and Washington -- from barracks converted into a makeshift call centre.
“This is our direct line to Amman,” said the head of the ceasefire monitoring centre, Lieutenant General Sergei Kuralenko, pointing to a telephone.