Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Monday for opening a humanitarian corridor in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta. The United Nations, France and Germany had made pressing appeals for Putin to demand the Syrian regime to enforce a ceasefire, including in Eastern Ghouta where more than 500 civilians were killed last week. He agreed on Monday to a five-hour daily window that would allow residents of the battered enclave east of the capital to come out of the underground shelters they have been cowering in. "On the instructions of the Russian president, with the goal of avoiding civilian casualties in Eastern Ghouta, from February 27 -- tomorrow -- from 9:00 to 14:00 there will be a humanitarian pause," Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. According to a statement sent to AFP, he said there should be similar pauses in the southern Al-Tanf border region and Rukban, near the Jordanian border. Shoigu said "humanitarian corridors" would be opened to allow civilians to leave, adding that their locations would soon be divulged. UN chief Antonio Guterres had expressed frustration with the lack of results the resolution yielded and stressed Monday in Geneva: "Eastern Ghouta cannot wait. It is high time to stop this hell on earth." The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights a, UK-based monitoring group, has said more than 500 people have been killed in the strikes by pro-regime forces in the past week. The UN Security Council voted on Saturday for a 30-day ceasefire across Syria, though fighting continued inside Eastern Ghouta on Monday. Russia has helped to set up humanitarian corridors in other Syrian cities that had been controlled by rebels. Moscow says the corridors are aimed at saving lives, but the regime’s opponents say they are a cynical ploy to snuff out the last pockets of rebellion.