The Pentagon believes Russia’s military has sought to recruit Syrians to fight in Ukraine as local resistance has begun to bog down Moscow’s invasion effort, defense officials said Monday.
Reports of Moscow’s alleged recruitment attempts first emerged among Syrian activist networks last month, Al-Monitor reported. A report by Deir Ezzor 24 last month said Syrians were being offer $200-300 dollars per month to work as guards in Ukraine.
- The Wall Street Journal yesterday cited four anonymous American officials as confirming the reports, with one saying that Syrian fighters already in Russia were preparing to head to Ukraine.
- A senior US defense official speaking on the condition of anonymity affirmed to reporters Monday that the accounts were accurate but said American officials had seen no evidence so far that Syrian fighters have yet entered Ukraine.
- “We do believe that the accounts of the Russians seeking Syrian fighters to augment their forces in Ukraine — we believe there’s truth to that,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said later on Monday.
- American officials have offered no details on the alleged recruitment nor indicated what evidence they have to support it. “We have indications, I’ll leave it at that,” Kirby said Monday.
Unprecedented? Russia and Turkey have both transported Syrian mercenaries to tip the scales in conflicts abroad in recent years, namely in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.
- But no side has yet brought Syrian fighters into Ukraine. Such a move would likely further isolate Moscow from the West and cement a trend of warfare relying on transnational mercenaries in recent years.
- Meanwhile, other groups of fighters are already entering Ukraine’s conflict. Chechen forces are involved on both sides and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed last week that some 16,000 foreigners have volunteered to join the fight against Russia’s invasion.
- Russia’s Wagner paramilitary operatives, who have been accused of war crimes in both Syria and Libya, reportedly filtered into central Ukraine during the first week of the invasion with orders to target Zelenskyy.
What’s Next: It’s not yet clear whether Moscow will follow through on this possibility, nor whether Washington’s recent tactic of preemptively declassifying intelligence will embarrass Kremlin leadership enough to rule it out.
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