SYRIAN troops reported freeing tens of thousands more civilians from insurgent-occupied eastern Aleppo yesterday as the army continued to press forward.

Russian Defence Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said 80,000 civilians had been rescued so far this week, adding: “Those Syrians served as human shields in Aleppo for terrorists of all flavours.”

A Syrian government estimate of the number to have escaped the city was much smaller at 20,000.

A Kremlin spokesperson announced on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered mobile hospitals to be sent to the city to treat the former hostages who had been denied medical aid by the insurgents.

However government air strikes in the remaining rebel-held areas killed at least 18 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human rights.

Britain, France, the US and Germany have subsequently threatened more sanctions on Russia.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called for an urgent UN security council meeting in a bid to stop the Syrian government’s operations in Aleppo.

He said he would meet insurgent-appointed east Aleppo “mayor” Brita Haj Hassan in Paris today.

North of Aleppo, army troops backed by the Kurdish Syrian National Resistance force drove Turkish-supported Free Syrian Army soldiers from the villages of Axraq and Mazrat.

At a conference in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dropped all pretence and declared that Turkey invaded northern Syria three months ago to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

“We entered there to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorises with state terror,” he said. Previously Turkey claimed to have invaded to fight Isis.

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