President Vladimir Putin of Russia has ordered the start of a military withdrawal from Syria, where Russian forces have been bombing insurgent enemies of the government for five months, Russia's state news media reported Monday.
The state news reports said Putin telephoned President Bashar Assad of Syria to inform him of the decision to withdraw starting Tuesday, as the Syrian conflict is entering its sixth year.
"I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished," Putin was quoted as saying by the Russia Today news service. "That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic starting from tomorrow," Putin said during a meeting with his top aides.
The United Nations special envoy on the Syria conflict, Staffan de Mistura, resumed his efforts Monday to broker a peace deal between Assad's forces and the array of insurgent groups aligned against him.