Part of the Russian military's methodology as it seeks to establish belts of influence in Syria is the creation and support of loyalist militia units. But despite superficial efforts to centralize Syrian armed structures, Russia is actually contributing to their disintegration. Iran, for its part, is trying to integrate the militias into the permanent military structures of the Syrian army.

The Turkish government-run Anadolu news agency previously reported that the United States sabotaged Russia’s plans to form an ethnic Kurdish militia in Hasakah. The report suggested that Americans had persuaded locals to refuse to join a pro-Russian structure and warned them that “Russia was going to use the members of this structure as mercenaries in Libya.”

While some notable experts dismissed the Turkish report, there also was speculation that the Kurdish administration was to coordinate this very recruitment process with the United States in order to stop the spread of Turkish influence. Whatever the case, the recruitment attempt by the Russian military is not denied.

The Russian proposal's first stage would reportedly require several hundred young people — mostly Kurds — to be trained by Kurdish YPG instructors under Russian supervision. Later they would have to either join the units that guard the Russian military facilities in Amuda and Tal Tamr or to escort Russian military patrols. The long-term goal of this recruitment campaign was to expand Russian influence in northeastern Syria and to create a precedent of integration of Kurdish groups not with the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces but with pro-Russian militias. To date, however, attempts that started in late 2019 to set up militia units that would provide safety for Russian military facilities in northern Syria have not yet yielded results.