Europe's Next Refugee Crisis, Courtesy Vladimir Putin

Assad and Putin tighten the noose around rebel-held Aleppo — and you don’t need to guess the result:

An intensified offensive by Syria’s government to retake the city of Aleppo, backed by Russian airstrikes, led to a mass exodus of civilians Thursday, with tens of thousands fleeing their homes in an apparent attempt to reach the border with Turkey.

Britain-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 40,000 people were displaced by Thursday’s violence, while Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu claimed that the number was closer to 70,000, the BBC reported.

It doesn’t take much imagination to guess where many of those refugees will end up.