World Bulletin / News Desk

European Council President Donald Tusk said Friday that Russia and Iran are allowing the Assad regime’s brutality across war-torn Syria.

Speaking to reporters following an informal meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, Tusk said: “The Assad regime is brutally attacking innocent men, women and children. Its backers, Russia and Iran, are allowing this to happen.”

“We urge them to stop this violence. The EU calls for an immediate cease-fire, and for providing urgent humanitarian access to, and protection of civilians,” he added.

His statement comes amid ongoing regime attacks on civilians in Damascus’ suburb of Eastern Ghouta, which has been facing intensified bombing in recent days.

More than 400 civilians have been killed and more than 2,100 wounded in Eastern Ghouta over the last six days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

On Thursday, Russia's Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said Russia would not support a UN cease-fire proposal without some changes, calling it "unrealistic.”

Home to some 400,000 people, Eastern Ghouta has remained under a crippling regime siege for the last five years, bringing it to the verge of humanitarian catastrophe.

In the past eight months, Assad regime forces have intensified their siege, making it nearly impossible for food or medicine to get into the district and leaving thousands of patients in need of treatment.

Syria has been locked in a devastating conflict since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.

According to UN officials, to date hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict.