Russia is recruiting Syrians and other foreign fighters as it ramps up its assault on Ukraine, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Moscow entered the Syrian civil war in 2015 on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and the country has been mired in a conflict marked by urban combat for more than a decade.
Now, Russian President Vladimir Putin is “on a recruiting mission,” seeking to bring some of those fighters into the fray in Ukraine, US Department of Defense officials said.
Photo: AFP
The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as saying that Russia has recruited fighters from Syria, hoping that they can help take Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and other cities.
One official told the daily that some fighters are in Russia readying to join the fight in Ukraine, although it was not immediately clear how many combatants have been recruited.
Officials would not speculate on how many mercenaries have joined the fight, or on the quality of the fighters, but the Pentagon said that there was no reason to doubt the accuracy of the reports.
“We do believe that the accounts of them — the Russians — seeking Syrian fighters to augment their forces in Ukraine, we believe there’s truth to that,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
However, with enormous firepower and more than 150,000 deployed troops at Putin’s disposal, the Pentagon said it was noteworthy that he would find it necessary to recruit mercenaries.
“It’s interesting that Mr Putin would have to find himself relying on foreign fighters here,” Kirby said, although he said that the Pentagon does not have “perfect visibility” on exactly who is joining the cause.
Earlier on Monday, a senior defense official told reporters more directly: “We know that they’re trying to recruit Syrians for the fight.”
Foreign combatants have entered the Ukrainian conflict on both sides of the front line.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has shared videos of Chechen fighters joining the attack on Ukraine and said some had been killed in the fighting.
Separately, a senior US Department of Defense official on Monday said that Russia has deployed into Ukraine nearly 100 percent of the more than 150,000 forces that it had pre-staged outside the country before the invasion.
“That’s our best estimate right now,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Russia has fired more than 625 missiles at Ukrainian targets, the official added.
Over the weekend, the Pentagon ordered an additional 500 troops to Europe, which would bring the total number of US forces there to about 100,000, the official said.
The deployment included additional refueling aircraft that would be sent to Greece, along with an ordnance and maintenance company.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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