Some Syrian paramilitary fighters say they are ready to deploy to Ukraine to fight in support of their ally Russia, but have not yet received instructions to go, two of their commanders said.
Speaking by telephone from the Syrian town of Suqaylabiyah, Nabil Abdallah, a commander in the paramilitary Syrian National Defense Forces (NDF), said that he was ready to use expertise in urban combat gained during the Syrian war to aid Russia.
“Once we get instructions from the Syrian and Russian leadership, we will fight this righteous war,” Abdallah said on Monday last week four days after Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the green light for 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to deploy in Ukraine.
Photo: Reuters
“We don’t fear this war and are ready for it once instructions come to go and join. We will show them what they never saw ... We will wage street wars and [apply] tactics we acquired during our battles that defeated the terrorists in Syria,” Abdallah added.
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment on whether Russia intended to issue instructions for NDF fighters to deploy or whether any NDF fighters had so far been recruited.
Reuters received no response to questions sent to the Syrian Ministry of Information and the army via the information ministry.
Syria is Russia’s closest ally in the Middle East, and Moscow’s intervention in the Syrian war in 2015 proved decisive in helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad defeat rebel forces in enclaves across much of his country.
The NDF emerged from pro-Assad militias early in the Syrian war and fought in offensives that captured some of the rebel held enclaves, with Russian air support.
Now largely demobilized, the NDF numbers in the tens of thousands, experts on Syria say, a potentially large pool of recruits for Russia if the Ukraine war drags on.
A second NDF commander, Simon Wakeel from the town of Mharda, also said that “a lot of our people want to enlist to join our Russian brothers [and] allies, but we have not received any instructions from the leadership.”
“We are auxiliary forces that fought alongside the army and with our Russian allies. We crushed the terrorists who waged the war in Syria,” added Wakeel, who has been decorated by Russia.
On March 11, Putin told a meeting of the Russian Security Council that if people from the Middle East wanted to come to Ukraine of their own accord, and not for money, then Russia should help them “get to the conflict zone.”
US Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, told a US Senate hearing on Tuesday last week that the numbers of Syrians trying to head to Ukraine appeared to be a “trickle.”
Two senior regional officials with close ties to the Syrian government and three sources close to the Syrian army have told Reuters that Russia has been seeking to tap Syrians with combat experience for Ukraine.
The effort is being run out of a Russian air base at Hmeimein in Syria’s Latakia Governate, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Ukrainian military intelligence said 150 mercenaries were sent from Russia’s Hmeimein Air Base in Syria to Russia on Tuesday to take part in military actions against Ukraine, the Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine said.
It said more than 30 fighters had returned to Hmeimein from Russia “after being wounded in fighting with Ukrainian defenders.”
Ukrainian military intelligence said the recruits had been promised they would be used strictly in a policing role to maintain order in occupied territories, but recently information has begun to circulate among mercenaries about taking part directly in military actions against the Ukrainian army.
The Russian defense ministry and the Syrian information ministry did not comment on the account from Ukrainian intelligence.
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