The Russian Defence Ministry will extend a moratorium on air strikes on the Syrian city of Aleppo, but did not specify for how long.
Russia said earlier on Tuesday that Russian and Syrian military planes had not launched air strikes on Aleppo since October 18, contradicting reports that air strikes in some areas of the city had resumed on Saturday.
Russia's Interfax news agency reported earlier that a "humanitarian pause" in Aleppo would be extended by three hours, but a defence ministry statement later clarified that extension related to a ceasefire on October 20 and not to air strikes.
"The moratorium on air strikes by the Russian and Syrian air forces around (Aleppo) will be extended," the ministry said in the statement, saying it meant Russian and Syrian planes would continue to stay out of a 10 kilometre zone around Aleppo.
It said it was also ready to organise more ceasefires on the ground in Aleppo to allow wounded civilians to be evacuated.
"We are ready to establish (further) humanitarian pauses ... but only if we have reliable information about the readiness to evacuate the sick, injured and civilian population," the defence ministry said.
Meanwhile, the United States expects the campaigns against Islamic State in Mosul and Raqqa to overlap, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said, signalling that a push to start isolating the group's de facto capital in Syria may not be very far off.
Iraqi forces are already nine days into their US-backed campaign to take the city of Mosul from Islamic State, fighting their way towards the city's outer limits in what could become the biggest military operation in Iraq in over a decade.
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