According to the Pentagon, Russia is trying to recruit Syrians to fight in Ukraine to support Moscow’s slow-moving incursion.
A senior US defense official said it was unclear how many Syrians Vladimir Putin is seeking to recruit, but said “we think it’s remarkable that he thinks he needs to rely on foreign fighters.” The official added that so far there is no evidence that Syrian fighters have arrived in Ukraine.
The Russian recruiting effort was first reported by the Syrian news site DeirEzzor24, which reported that Moscow was looking for volunteers to work as security guards on six-month contracts for $200-$300 a month. The same report says that the Russian mercenary company Wagner was arming its Syrian fighters, who participated in the Libyan war on the side of General Khalifa Haftar, to be transferred to Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal reported that some Syrian mercenaries are already in Russia and are preparing to engage in combat in Syria. According to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, Russia has also stationed Chechen forces in Ukraine.
Last week, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov said that a Chechen special forces unit was sent to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky. Danilov said that Ukraine received information from the Russian FSB intelligence service and intercepted and destroyed a Chechen militant unit on the outskirts of Kyiv.
According to the Pentagon, there has so far been no indication that any Belarusian troops are taking part in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or even preparing to take part, despite reports that they may be sent to the front.
Reports of recruiting foreign fighters emerged as the Russian offensive aimed at Kyiv continued to falter, even after Putin deployed nearly 100% of the sizable invasion force he had amassed on Ukraine’s borders, including 127 battalion task forces, according to the Pentagon.
“We’re not seeing much progress,” a senior defense ministry official said, citing a combination of tough Ukrainian resistance and “internal problems” within the Russian forces.
The US also believes that Ukrainian airspace is still contested as Kiev government forces still have most of their aircraft available and flying, and its air defenses are still operational.
But the official warned that Russian forces were advancing further south and that Vladimir Putin still had much more combat power, especially his air force, which had so far been sidelined by the war.
As the ground offensive stalled, the Pentagon said the Russians were relying more on rocket and missile strikes from long range. More civilian areas are being hit as a result, but the Pentagon has not yet been able to determine whether this is unintentional or deliberate targeting that would be a war crime.
Ukraine has created its own “international legion” for foreign volunteers who must come to its defense. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said more than 20,000 people from 52 countries have said they are ready to come to the country to serve alongside the Ukrainian armed forces. Kuleba did not say how many foreign fighters arrived in Ukraine, and did not name the nationality of the volunteers, saying that participation in foreign wars is prohibited in some of their countries.