Russia recruiting Syrians for urban combat in Ukraine

Moscow is looking for help from foreign fighters to take cities including Kyiv.

Syrian government troops fight rebel fighters east of Aleppo in December 2016. The government seized large swaths of the Aleppo enclave under rebel control since 2012 in the offensive that began last week. The fighting was most intense Monday near the dividing line between east and west Aleppo as government and allied troops push their way from the eastern flank, reaching within less than a kilometer (half a mile) from the citadel that anchors the center of the city. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Moscow is recruiting Syrians skilled in urban combat to fight in Ukraine as Russia’s invasion is poised to expand deeper into the cities, according to US officials.

An American assessment indicates that Russia, which has been operating inside Syria since 2015, has in recent days been recruiting fighters from there, hoping their expertise in urban combat can help take Kyiv and deal a devastating blow to the Ukrainian government, according to four American officials. The move points to a ­potential escalation of fighting in Ukraine, the experts said.

It is unclear how many fighters have been identified, but some are already in Russia and are preparing to enter the conflict, according to one official.

Officials declined to elaborate on what else is known about the deployment of Syrian fighters to Ukraine, the status, or the precise scale of the effort.

According to a publication based in Deir Ezzor, Syria, Russia has offered volunteers from the country between $US200 ($270) and $US300 “to go to Ukraine and operate as guards” for six months at a time.

Syrians aren’t the only foreigners said to be involved in the invasion of Ukraine. Chechen forces have also been deployed to the country, according to a Reuters ­report citing Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Fighters are also pouring into the country to fight on the side of the Kyiv-based government.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said some 20,000 international volunteers had travelled to Ukraine to join the fight against the Russian invaders.

With volunteers from other countries flowing into Ukraine, the conflict there could become a new centre of gravity for foreign fighters, said Jennifer Cafarella, national security fellow at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

“The Russian deployment of ­foreign fighters from Syria into Ukraine internationalises Ukr­aine and the Ukrainian war, and therefore could link the war in Ukraine to broader cross regional dynamics, particularly in the Middle East,” she said.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops are inside Ukraine and mortar, missile and other attacks are occurring daily in the northern, eastern and southern regions of the country.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have fled the cities, which were home to roughly two-thirds of the population before the invasion began on February 24.

Ukraine remains in the hands of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, and the largest cities, Kyiv, the capital, and Kharkiv in the east, remain under government control. Russia has taken over the port city of Kherson, and Ukraine’s other cities now face an assault from Russian troops.

Syrian fighters have spent nearly a decade fighting urban warfare, while Russia’s largely conscripted force lacks this skill set. Ms Cafarella said Syrian forces deployed to Ukraine could also be asked to work a support role, based on how they worked in Syria with the Wagner Group, a mercenary force that some see as a proxy for the Russian government.

Russia has been a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since it entered that conflict, largely through airstrikes as well as with Russian armed forces.

The Wagner Group, which arrived in Syria shortly after Russia entered the conflict on behalf of the Assad regime, has conducted support operations such as seizing oil and gas fields and securing other government infrastructure, such as airports.

Russia, which positioned nearly 200,000 troops along the Ukrainian border in the weeks leading up to the invasion, said on Wednesday 498 of its troops had been killed and another 1597 had been wounded, a rare public admission of battlefield losses.

Other sources have put the ­figures much higher, including the Ukrainian armed forces’ general staff, which, according to a Reuters report, said the estimate for Russian troop deaths was closer to 11,000.

The Wall Street JouRnal