Hundreds of Syrian fighters are en route to join Russian forces in Ukraine, effectively returning the favor to Moscow for helping President Bashar al-Assad crush rebels in an 11-year civil war, according to two people monitoring the flow of mercenaries.
A first contingent of soldiers has already arrived in Russia for military training before heading to Ukraine, according to a Western diplomat and a Damascus-based ally of the Syrian government. It includes at least 300 soldiers from a Syrian army division that has worked closely with Russian officers who went to Syria to support Mr. al-Assad during the war.
And many more could be on the way: Recruiters across Syria have been drawing up lists of thousands of interested candidates to be vetted by the Syrian security services and then passed to the Russians.
Syria has grown in recent years into an exporter of mercenaries, a grim aftereffect of years of war that gave many men combat experience but so damaged the country’s economy that people now struggle to find work. So they have deployed as guns-for-hire to wars in Libya, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic — and now Ukraine.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
“In general, money is the motivation,” said Bassam Alahmad, the head of Syrians for Truth and Justice, an advocacy group that has researched the Syrian mercenary trade. Some Syrians feel loyalty to Russia because of its support for Mr. al-Assad, he said, while others sign up to fight because they simply need the money and believe recruiters’ promises that they will have noncombat jobs, such as guarding bases or oil facilities.
are definitely taking advantage of people’s needs,” Mr. Alahmad said. “The result is the same: People are paying this price. People are participating in wars that aren’t theirs.”
On Wednesday, John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said the United States believed that about 1,000 mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Russian military contractor, are focused on the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, where Russia has installed two separatist enclaves. Mr. Kirby added that Wagner was believed to recruit from Arab countries, including Syria and Libya.
Syria’s long-running war drew in foreign powers such as Iran, Turkey, Russia and the United States, all of which worked with Syrian military groups on the ground to advance their interests.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Some of those partnerships now facilitate mercenary traffic.
Russia and Turkey together dispatched about 10,000 Syrian fighters to bolster their preferred sides in the conflict in Libya, Mr. Alahmad said, and Turkey sent about 2,000 Syrians to Azerbaijan during last year’s war in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia has sent small numbers of Syrians as far as Venezuela, where Moscow has interests in the oil industry.
Using mercenaries is not considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, but there is a separate United Nations treaty that criminalizes it. Ukraine is a signatory to that treaty, but Russia is not.
“What we are seeing is predatory recruitment,” said Sorcha MacLeod, the chair of the United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries. “They are taking advantage of the poor socioeconomic situation that these people find themselves in.”
The war in Ukraine could pull in large numbers of Syrians, given the scope of the battle, the high number of Russian dead and wounded and Russia’s close ties with the Syrian military. But much about the deployments and activities of Syrian mercenaries remains murky because of the covert nature of their work.
Western officials, experts tracking the issue, recruiters and returned fighters described a messy system in which men with few options scramble for limited opportunities to risk their lives for salaries they could not match at home.
The war in Ukraine has caused interest to spike, and recruiters have launched registration drives across Syria to gather names of men who want to go, according to Mr. Alahmad and a recruiter in southern Syria who is signing men up. The recruiter spoke on condition of anonymity, like others in this article, for fear of repercussions from the Syrian government.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Recruiters often collect payment for registration, and scams are rife.
The recruiter in southern Syria said he started his work after a scammer who had promised him a job in Libya took his money and abandoned him near the city of Latakia in northwest Syria with no way to return home.
He said he had signed up multiple groups to go to Libya, and recently got word that the Russians want as many as 16,000 Syrians to fight in Ukraine. Applicants must be between 20 and 45 years old and weigh between 110 and 200 pounds, he said, adding that those with military experience get priority and that all recruits must be vetted by the Syrian security services.
He and his partner charge applicants about $7 to apply and earn $25 for each one who is accepted, he said. The lack of other work and a currency collapse that has made basic items like bread and cooking gas exorbitantly expensive in Syria have driven up interest in Ukraine, with the promise of earning $1,000-$2,000 a month.
www.nytimes.com
A first contingent of soldiers has already arrived in Russia for military training before heading to Ukraine, according to a Western diplomat and a Damascus-based ally of the Syrian government. It includes at least 300 soldiers from a Syrian army division that has worked closely with Russian officers who went to Syria to support Mr. al-Assad during the war.
And many more could be on the way: Recruiters across Syria have been drawing up lists of thousands of interested candidates to be vetted by the Syrian security services and then passed to the Russians.
Syria has grown in recent years into an exporter of mercenaries, a grim aftereffect of years of war that gave many men combat experience but so damaged the country’s economy that people now struggle to find work. So they have deployed as guns-for-hire to wars in Libya, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic — and now Ukraine.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
“In general, money is the motivation,” said Bassam Alahmad, the head of Syrians for Truth and Justice, an advocacy group that has researched the Syrian mercenary trade. Some Syrians feel loyalty to Russia because of its support for Mr. al-Assad, he said, while others sign up to fight because they simply need the money and believe recruiters’ promises that they will have noncombat jobs, such as guarding bases or oil facilities.
are definitely taking advantage of people’s needs,” Mr. Alahmad said. “The result is the same: People are paying this price. People are participating in wars that aren’t theirs.”
On Wednesday, John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said the United States believed that about 1,000 mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Russian military contractor, are focused on the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, where Russia has installed two separatist enclaves. Mr. Kirby added that Wagner was believed to recruit from Arab countries, including Syria and Libya.
Syria’s long-running war drew in foreign powers such as Iran, Turkey, Russia and the United States, all of which worked with Syrian military groups on the ground to advance their interests.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Some of those partnerships now facilitate mercenary traffic.
Russia and Turkey together dispatched about 10,000 Syrian fighters to bolster their preferred sides in the conflict in Libya, Mr. Alahmad said, and Turkey sent about 2,000 Syrians to Azerbaijan during last year’s war in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia has sent small numbers of Syrians as far as Venezuela, where Moscow has interests in the oil industry.
Using mercenaries is not considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, but there is a separate United Nations treaty that criminalizes it. Ukraine is a signatory to that treaty, but Russia is not.
“What we are seeing is predatory recruitment,” said Sorcha MacLeod, the chair of the United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries. “They are taking advantage of the poor socioeconomic situation that these people find themselves in.”
The war in Ukraine could pull in large numbers of Syrians, given the scope of the battle, the high number of Russian dead and wounded and Russia’s close ties with the Syrian military. But much about the deployments and activities of Syrian mercenaries remains murky because of the covert nature of their work.
Western officials, experts tracking the issue, recruiters and returned fighters described a messy system in which men with few options scramble for limited opportunities to risk their lives for salaries they could not match at home.
The war in Ukraine has caused interest to spike, and recruiters have launched registration drives across Syria to gather names of men who want to go, according to Mr. Alahmad and a recruiter in southern Syria who is signing men up. The recruiter spoke on condition of anonymity, like others in this article, for fear of repercussions from the Syrian government.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Recruiters often collect payment for registration, and scams are rife.
The recruiter in southern Syria said he started his work after a scammer who had promised him a job in Libya took his money and abandoned him near the city of Latakia in northwest Syria with no way to return home.
He said he had signed up multiple groups to go to Libya, and recently got word that the Russians want as many as 16,000 Syrians to fight in Ukraine. Applicants must be between 20 and 45 years old and weigh between 110 and 200 pounds, he said, adding that those with military experience get priority and that all recruits must be vetted by the Syrian security services.
He and his partner charge applicants about $7 to apply and earn $25 for each one who is accepted, he said. The lack of other work and a currency collapse that has made basic items like bread and cooking gas exorbitantly expensive in Syria have driven up interest in Ukraine, with the promise of earning $1,000-$2,000 a month.
Syrian Mercenaries Deploy to Russia en Route to Ukrainian Battlefields (Published 2022)
A first contingent has arrived in Russia for military training including members of a Syrian unit that worked with Russian officers in Syria, backing President Bashar al-Assad.
