EUROPEAN Union member states debated further sanctions against Syria yesterday after Britain and the US admitted that Nato had no stomach for war with Russia.

But EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that adding more Syrian government figures and generals to the sanctions list was merely “possible.”

Foreign ministers gathered in Luxembourg after British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his US counterpart John Kerry blinked in their face-off with Moscow.

On his arrival, Mr Johnson urged Russia to “pull the plug” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

After Sunday evening’s London summit of 11 countries backing violent regime change in Syria, the pair conceded that their push for international military action to prevent the Syrian army winning the key northern city of Aleppo had failed.

Earlier this month, Russia warned that any attack on Syria would be treated as an attack on Russian forces there and met with a military response.

Mr Johnson made a dramatic U-turn from his position last week that talks with Russia over Syria had “run out of road” and “more kinetic options” were needed.

“There is, to put it mildly, a lack of political appetite in most European capitals and certainly in the West for that kind of solution at present,” he acknowledged.

Instead, he joined Mr Kerry in backing a new ceasefire in Syria — which would replace the September truce, which lasted barely a week.

Both men said they needed to “work with the tools we have” — diplomatic pressure, sanctions and the threat of prosecutions at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. But neither Syria, its main allies nor its regional enemies are parties to the Rome statute that established the court.

Mr Kerry said President Barack Obama had not ruled out involving the US in another war in his last three months in office.

But he admitted: “I don’t see the parliaments of European countries ready to declare war, I don’t see a lot of countries deciding that that’s the better solution here.”

At the Brics summit in Goa, the five powerhouses of the developing world — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — called for a “comprehensive and peaceful resolution of the conflict, taking into account the legitimate aspirations of the people of Syria.”

They said peace could only be reached “through inclusive national dialogue and a Syrian-led political process.”

Yesterday, Syrian troops backed by Lebanese Hezbollah guerillas and Palestinian refugee militia continued their street-by-street advance against al-Qaida fighters in Aleppo’s eastern districts.

Meanwhile, south-west of Damascus, the army advanced into the outskirts of Khan al-Sheih, driving back the al-Qaida-affiliated Levant Conquest Front.