Iraq The New Customer

Iraq ordered 73 Russian T-90 tanks in mid-2017 and 36 arrived in February. The rest were to arrive by the end of April. The T-90 is one of many upgraded T-72s available on the market. Until 2003 the Iraqi Army operated hundreds of older T-72s, which proved no competition for the American M-1. The T-90 has been produced in large quantities since the 1990s but not for Russia. It is mostly an export item. The T-90 was a late 1980s project that was to incorporate T-80 features into many upgrades of the T-72. Originally it was designated the T-72BU but when Russia finally began production in 1993 it was renamed the T-90. That succeeded in making the tank an export success with most (84 percent) of those produced going to export customers. In fact, India and Algeria each have more T-90s in service than Russia. Worse Russia has quietly put over a third of its 550 newly built T-90s into reserve. While the T-90 was loudly proclaimed to be the next big thing the Russian army preferred the refurbished T-72s in the form of the T-72B3. These proved to be cheaper and more reliable than T-90s, something that got little publicity. While all the upgrades (new engine, gun, fire control and protection) made it nearly as expensive as the T-90 it was preferred by the troops and the older officers quietly agreed that it was a better tank than the new T-90/T-72BUs.


This apparently has something to do with the design of the T-72BU (trying to merge T-80 elements into the T-72 design) and the decline in manufacturing quality in Russian the defense industry after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Since the T-72B3 was introduced in 2013 it has been produced in far greater numbers than any other tank and that continues. Especially telling was how T-90s began to be taken out of service (and put in reserve) as soon as enough T-72B3s became available. At the same time, the most popular Russian tank for export customers is the T-72B (a B3 with fewer of the upgrades) and these cost nearly two million each but can be delivered in a few months after the contract is signed. The T-72B3 has been so popular with Russian troops that the government is giving it more publicity in the state-controlled mass media.

India The Former Customer

India has, in turn, bought less from Russia, long the main supplier, and depended more on Western nations (mainly the U.S. and Israel). China has become a major threat to customers Russia long believed they had a lock on. China can offer a wider range of inexpensive weapons similar to what Russia has long offered but deliver stuff of higher quality, higher quantity and customized to customer requirements. Moreover, China turns around these orders more quickly. There are still some Chinese weapons suppliers who have acquired some of the bad Russian habits but these are usually bottom feeders supplying the lowest cost stuff to the most desperate customers. China encourages its arms manufacturers to take the high road, except when it comes to practical measures like paying bribes to get the sale and get it delivered. If India and China did not have some many border disputes India would be buying Chinese weapons in place of the increasingly shoddy ones Russia is offering.


Ukraine

The war in Donbas drags on without much result. The Russians are keeping the conflict going but holding back on any decisive moves because of the more volatile situation in Syria and the fact that the Ukraine related sanctions are a continuing headache that cannot be easily solved. Russia says the government has managed to overcome the ill-effects of the sanctions but the government knows better. Efforts to impose more control over the Internet and electronic communications has had some impact but has largely failed. One benefit of all this is steady intel reports (from the FSB and the censors) about what Russians really think in this neo-Soviet police state. Most Russians are not happy. They know they are suffering from lower living standards because of the sanctions and persistent corruption. Government efforts to mask economic failures with claims of foreign victories are not working. Most Russians are against “foreign military adventures” and the government already acknowledges that by minimizing the number of Russian troops sent to Syria or Donbas and keeping military casualties low. The recent death of over 200 Russian military contractors in Syria did not trigger calls for revenge among Russians. Instead, the attitude was that these guys took a chance to make a lot of money and it didn’t w0rk out. There are a lot of dangerous jobs in Russia that pay well to compensate for the risk. Those who do that work are opportunists, not patriots. So the government has to go easy in Ukraine and Syria. Russians can take some comfort that the corruption in Ukraine is worse, even though the country is under attack. The extent of the damage can be seen in the higher rate of population loss in Ukraine than in Russia. Both countries are losing many of the young people, especially those with skills that are needed elsewhere and provide the migrants with jobs, higher living standards and more personal safety than back home. It’s mostly about the corruption, which most former parts of the Soviet Union have been unable to control. There are exceptions. The Baltic States have coped, as have most East European nations. But the Soviet Union collapsed mainly because of uncontrollable corruption. The problem is still with the post-Soviet states.


April 24, 2018: Israeli leaders again publicly warned Russia not use their air defense systems against Israel because if that happened Israel would retaliate (go after those air defense systems). The Israelis have developed SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) techniques for the latest Russian air defense systems (S-400) but would rather not use them because that would reveal surprises that the Russians could develop countermeasures for. That would be a consolation prize because if the Israel SEAD worked it would make the S-400 a difficult export sale. Israel makes these threats to make sure potential export customers are reminded of what is at stake here.

April 23, 2018: There was a massive and unexpected disruption of Google services in Russia. This was related to Russian attempts to shut down the encrypted messaging app “Telegram” in Russia. The company that runs Telegram refused to provide the Russian government with a way to read encrypted Telegram messages. The government ordered hundreds of IP addresses blocked, believing that would block Telegram. It did, but not for everyone. An unexpected side effect of this censorship campaign was to disrupt a lot of vital (for many Russian users) Google services. Telegram was founded by a Russian entrepreneur after he fled Russia in 2014 because of disagreements with the government over censorship and corruption.


April 22, 2018: Using security system video and records of Russians entering and leaving the country British investigators believe they can identify which Russians were involved with the use of nerve gas to try and murder Sergei Skripal on March 4th. Skripal was a former Soviet intelligence officer, who worked for Britain as a double agent. He was found unconscious on March 4th, with his adult daughter, on a park bench near a British pub they had visited. The two were hospitalized and survived what was apparently an assassination attempt using a form of nerve gas developed in Russia and, as far as anyone knows, not possessed by anyone but Russia. Three of the police officers who responded to the call about the unconscious people on the park bench also fell ill, one of them seriously. Everyone recovered and provided information on what happened. Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats suspected of being intelligence agents and Russia responded by expelling 23 British diplomats. More nations said they would expel Russian diplomats. This assassination effort was nothing new for Russia. Skripal was still working for British intelligence when he was arrested in Russia at the end of 2004 and prosecuted for espionage. He was sent to prison in 2006 but got out in 2010 when Russia agreed to use him as one of the three imprisoned spies to get back several Russian illegals who were caught in the United States. Russia was reluctant to part with Skripal, who had apparently done enormous damage to Russian overseas spying efforts. But they wanted their imprisoned agents in the U.S. back. This was not the first time Russia had gone after people like Skripal in Britain. This sort of thing has happened elsewhere in Europe before and after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia insists that it does not do this and have been saying that since the Soviets started hunting down and killing “traitors” overseas back in the 1930s.


British police and intelligence officials continue to compile proof that senior officials of the Russian government are responsible for death squads operating in the West, in order to kill defecting Russian officials and businessmen with intimate knowledge of corruption in Russia. Several victims who survived these assassination attempts in Britain (a favorite refuge for exiles) have provided British police with details of how government tolerated (or sponsored) corruption works in Russia.

April 21, 2018: In the south (Dagestan) police, acting on a tip, raided two locations where Islamic terrorists were said to be planning major attacks. The information was correct but the Islamic terrorists refused to surrender and after gun battles, nine of them were killed. Weapons, documents and bomb components were seized.

India revealed that it had, in February, withdrawn from the joint development and manufacturing agreement with Russia regarding their Su-57 stealth fighter. That agreement committed India to eventually contribute over $8 billion to developing and building Su-57s. India said they might still purchase the Su-57 once it is ready for sale and might even rejoin joint development efforts. But for now, India is writing off nearly $300 million it has already invested but is no longer obligated to spend over $8 billion to develop and manufacture an aircraft they have lost confidence in.


April 20, 2018: In a continuing effort to discredit claims that Russian air defense systems failed in Syria a Russian official revealed that Russia had told the Americans where Russian forces were in the area where the missile attack was aimed and the American, British and French missiles avoided the Russian forces. This has been the agreement with Russia in Syria for years. The Americans have observed this protocol although the Russians have violated it a few times. Meanwhile, American military analysts are openly claiming that the Russian air defense systems did not perform and the Russians want to counter this any way they can.

April 19, 2018: So far in 2018, the Russian navy has received a refurbished Delta IV class SSBNs (ballistic missile nuclear subs, or “boomer”) and many other new ships. The Delta IVs are getting old, and the six ones remaining in service were not expected to last much beyond the early 2020s. The two year refurbishment and upgrade of this Delta IV will keep it in service at least until 2030. A new class of Borei SSBNs is under construction but are having reliability problems. There are also problems with the new Bulava SLBM (sea launched ballistic missile) for the Boreis. So refurbishing the remaining Delta IVs makes sense.


The navy also received 46 new Kalibur submarine launched cruise missiles so far this year. The Kalibur has proved particularly effective and has been used frequently against targets in Syria. So far this all of the other new ships the Russian navy has received are small coastal patrol types.

April 18, 2018: The Ukrainian government released the results of their investigation of Russian military contractor firm the Wagner Group. Ukraine has captured a number of Wagner Group contractors operating in eastern Ukraine and some have been forthcoming with details of how Wagner operates. For example, Russia transported a number of Wagner Group men via the Russian missile cruiser Varyag. This is a large ship (11,000 tons) with a crew of 480. The Russian navy has been short of sailors and many ships go to sea short 10-20 percent of their crew. So it made sense that the government could fill some of those empty berths with Wagner men which Russia wanted to keep quiet about. Many more Wagner men were flown to Syria via a Syrian airline that operated a flight to Rostov-on-Don, an out of the way city where it is easier to hide things.


April 17, 2018: Russia has launched an effort to persuade Russians studying overseas to return to Russia to complete their education. At its peak, in 2014, some 60,000 Russians were studying abroad. Some are believed to work part time for Russian intelligence. Because of economic problems, the number of Russians studying abroad has declined since 2014.

April 16, 2018: South Korean officials meeting regularly with their North Korean counterparts report that North Korea leaders were impressed with how the Americans and their European allies launched a missile attack on Syrian chemical warfare facilities and blew right past Russian and Iranian defenses. It was also noted that the Americans were abandoning the 2015 treaty that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for abandoning their nuclear and missile programs. The Iranians cheated, as far as the Americans are concerned, and that means the 2015 deal is history. The North Koreans take this as an example of how the Americans will deal with similar behavior on the part of North Korea.


April 15, 2018: A Russian Alligator class amphibious ship as well as a Ro/Ro cargo ship were seen headed for Tartus with a cargo of armored vehicles (mostly various wheeled armored vehicles), heavy trucks, at least one coastal patrol boat, electronic gear, engineering equipment and much more.

Israel has told Russia that the proposed sale of S-300 systems to Syria was unacceptable for Israel and would not be allowed.

April 14, 2018: The United States, Britain and France launched 105 cruise missiles and glide bombs at three Syrian facilities that developed, produced and stored Syrian chemical weapons. Satellite photos later showed that all of the missiles and smart bombs apparently hit their targets. This was backed up by cell phone photos that got out of Syria showing the damage in great detail. Russia had immediately announced that the Russian supplied Syrian air defense system had performed as designed and shot down 71 of the missiles. This was an attempt to protect the reputation of the Russian air defense systems and even though there will be no wreckage of the 71 missiles Russian insists their systems shot down they will continue with the invented story. The Americans revealed that the Syrian air defense system went into action after the missiles hit and the coordinated attack had all the missiles hitting their targets with a few minutes of each other. French, British and American aircraft delivered some of the missiles and they all returned safely. There was no response from Russian naval forces against the American and British warships that launched most of the missiles. The attack used a clever deception by pretending an attack would be launched by American and allied warships in the Mediterranean. The Russians fell for this and tried to harass these ships. But in the meantime, another force of warships was moved into the Red Sea and launched most of the missiles from there or from warplanes flying in from outside the region.


The only one to keep believing the Russian version are many Russians who depend on state controlled media for all their news. There Russians are also told that the Syrian use of chemical weapons in Douma was a hoax perpetuated by the British, as was the earlier incident in Britain where someone (apparently a Russian agent) tried and nearly succeeded in killing a former Russian intelligence agent who had defected to the British. The failure of Russian air defense systems in Syria is going to cost Russia export sales as well as much embarrassment. All Russian claims about the success of their new weapons in Syria will be devalued. This is something Russia can’t even discuss publicly because the official Russian position is that none of their systems have failed. Iran has been a big customer for Russian air defense systems and Turkey has indicated interest in buying the S-400 system. Turkey and Iran have to reconsider in light of recent experience. So far Iran and Turkey are officially believing the Russian version of what happened.


The Syrian government considers the loss of their chemical weapons facilities a minor setback. Russia or Iran will pay to have the facilities replaced. Meanwhile, the April 7th chemical weapon attack on Douma caused rebel resistance in the area to collapse and within a few days, Syrian troops were able to move in, even though that violated terms of a peace deal the Russians had worked out. That was nothing new, Syria had regularly violated the Russian peace deals and it was no secret that the Russians created these “ceasefires” and “safe zones” mainly as propaganda and never as something that would prohibit Syrian forces from advancing. The civil war is not over but there is little to stop Assad from regaining control over most of Syria.

Russia continues pushing the accusation that the “Syrian chemical attack on Douma” was actually a fake. Syria has joined in and made a film about this fraud. But the Syrian video was quickly exposed as providing fake evidence of the staged attack when it was pointed out that the video proof the Syrians broadcast was from an earlier Syrian propaganda film that was presented as staged. The Russians were somewhat more successful as they unleashed an enormous “bot campaign” in support of its conspiracy theory. This bot campaign could be seen throughout the English language web as robotic accounts quickly provided scripted messages in support of the conspiracy theory in any public site where people were discussing the Syrian chemical attacks and using certain words and phrases that the Russian Internet monitoring system was set to seek out so the bots (programs pretending to be people posting messages) could be sent to support the claim that the chemical attack was faked to justify illegal air strikes on Syrian. It was an impressive disinformation campaign and part of a larger Russian effort to distract those asking why Russian air defense systems failed to perform when the air strikes hit and have been similarly ineffective against Israeli attacks.


April 12, 2018: in the east (Yekaterinburg) a Russian journalist, Maksim Borodin, died after he fell, or was pushed, from his fifth floor balcony. He was found unconscious and died, without regaining consciousness, three days later. The government ruled it a suicide but a friend of Borodin got a call from him the night before the fall. Borodin said it appeared his apartment building was surrounded by masked military men and feared he was going to be arrested, or worse. That’s because Borodin had investigated Russian government use of military contractors, especially the Wagner group. Borodin knew this was dangerous because several other journalists had, since the 1990s, investigated and reported on matters the government found embarrassing. These journalists tended to have fatal accidents. This discouraged many Russian journalists from doing similar investigations and Borodin was reminded by friends and associates that his work was probably still dangerous.

April 11, 2018: The Turkish foreign minister accused the Assad government of having killed over a million Syrians since 2011 and that it had no legitimate claim on being the government of Syria. Turkey has never had good relations with the Assads but was thought to have eased up a bit to get along with their Russian and Iranian allies, who are strong supporters of the Assads. But now Turkey has reverted to its normal attitude, that the Assads are a bunch of opportunistic, unreliable and murderous thugs. The current Turkish government has been unpredictable but the distrust of the Assads is a lot older than the Erdogan government, which took power in 2003. The Turks later elaborated that they are still Russian allies, aside from the support for Assad issue. The Turks would be pleased if the Russians arranged some other group to take control of the Syrian government. Russia has to proceed with care here because the Iranians are big fans of the Assads which may play a role in Turkish attitudes. Turkey and Iran have been foes for centuries and most of the time Iran got the worst of it. That sort of thing is not forgotten, especially in this part of the world. At the moment Turkish and Iranian troops are stalemated in northwest Syria where Iran is backing Assad efforts to take control of the area. The Turks refuse and, as it has for centuries, that causes mighty Iran to pause.


Russia resumed commercial flights to and from Egypt after a two year suspension because of ISIL getting a bomb aboard a Russian airliner in 2015. That brought down the aircraft and killed 224 Russians returning from vacations. Egypt has handled ISIL and improved security since 2015

April 10, 2018: In Syria, Russian ships have left the Russian naval base at Tartus. This is considered a standard move if major attacks are expected. European air control warned airlines to be careful over the eastern Mediterranean for the next 72 hours because there might be more air or missile strikes that would result in electronic countermeasures that could disrupt commercial navigations systems on airliners. Russia admitted that its electronic countermeasures were unable to stop the missiles, which they say were launched over Lebanon by Israeli F-15Is, during an earlier attack.

April 9, 2018: In central Syria, several missiles hit the Iranian T4 airbase near Palmyra. Four Iranian IRGC personnel were killed, including a colonel known for his work with Iranian UAVs. There were at least ten other dead, all believed to be Iranian mercenaries. This is where Iran moved its UAV operations after its original UAV base in Syria was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on February 10th. The Americans said they had advance warning of today’s attack while Russia complained that it was not advised even though it has some personnel at the T-4 base. Israel did not take credit for the attack, which is how Israel handles most of its airstrikes in Syria. Russia later revealed that its electronic jammers, which were supposed to disrupt the guidance systems of missiles attacking Syrian bases failed to do so during the T-4 attack. Details were not given, only that the Russian jammers were “interfered with by external forces.”


April 7, 2018: In Syria, an airstrike against Douma, a rebel held town east of Damascus, apparently involved some type of chemical weapon. Medical aid workers report at least 70 dead, including many civilians. The airstrike, like many Syria, carries out against pro-rebel civilians, involved a barrel bomb (an empty oil barrel filled with explosives and whatever else was available). These are pushed out of helicopters or transports and are equipped with a contact fuze so they explode on impact. Russian and Iranian military personnel work closely with the Syrian air force and know what goes on (and into barrel bombs). Iran has military advisors assigned to all the senior Syrian military commands and many of the lower level ones. Syria has been accused of using primitive (World War I type) chemical weapons that attack the respiratory system. These older chemical weapons are often nothing more than industrial chemicals (like chlorine) in large (and dangerous) doses. But this new attack and one before it apparently also included some nerve gas. Russia believes that industrial chemicals (like chlorine) don’t count as chemical weapons (according to the 2013 Russian brokered deal to rid Syria of chemical weapons) and the Iranians apparently don’t care. When prodded Iran will blame Israel or the Americans. In response, the United States said it would retaliate if the Douma attack did involve any kind of chemical weapon. The evidence indicates that the Douma attack involved a combination of chlorine and a nerve gas. Israel fears Iran is permitting Syria to use these chemical weapons to test their effectiveness and the degree of international outrage. Israel has always believed Iran planned to provide Syria and Hezbollah with chemical weapons for use in a major attack on Israel.


April 5, 2018: In Syria Turkey, Russia and Iran again agreed to put aside their differences and help each other in order to defeat the remaining rebels while also preventing Syrian Kurds from controlling any part of the country. The three agreed to tolerate Turkish operations (to build a Turkish controlled buffer zone on the Syrian side of the border) and cooperate to force American forces out of Syria. While this session was held in Turkey this is an extension of the talks that began in late 2017 in the Central Asian city of Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan). There the pro-Assad coalition of Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Assad government began their negotiations (also called “peace talks”) with each other about how to achieve everyone’s goals. From the beginning, Iran wanted access to the Israeli border and suppression of the Syrian Kurds. Turkey wanted an end to Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria. Russia wants to get whatever it can at the least cost. The public sessions were propaganda and details of the private meetings, the ones that mattered, were largely kept secret but it has always been clear that the Astana talks are about how to restore Assad rule to Syria, or at least most of it.


March 30, 2018: Ukrainian officials revealed that they had earlier arrested several Iranians, including at least one diplomat, after catching them trying to smuggle Kh-31 missile components and technical documents back to Iran. The Kh-31 was originally developed in the 1980s as an anti-ship missile. The Russians quickly realized that, with a different seeker, the missile would also work well as an ARM (anti-radiation) weapon. The anti-ship version has a range of 50 kilometers, while the ARM version is good for 110 kilometers. The 600 kg missile has an 87 kilogram (191 pounds) warhead and is used by Russia, China, Serbia and India. Ukraine inherited some Kh-31s when the Cold War ended but never put them into service. In the Persian, Gulf Kh-31s would make Iran even more of a threat to commercial and military shipping.


Iran, Russia, Turkey, the United States and Israel are all present in Syria along with the Assad government and a considerable number of Syrian rebel groups who are still not united . Everyone has different goals and a different (often constantly shifting) set of allies. Keeping track of who is doing what to whom and why (and for how long) has become increasingly difficult. A current summary of allies, foes, frenemies and chimeras goes like this;

Israel wants to keep Iran out of Syria and Lebanon and avoid a war with Iran. For this has the support of the U.S., Russia and most Gulf Arab states. None of these supporters is willing to provide any military assistance, at least not until Iran actually attacks Israel.

Russia wants to get Turkey out of NATO, to keep the Iranians from starting a war with Israel and make the Americans look bad. At the same time Russia needs to do this on the cheap and make Russia look good, especially to Russians back home. That is proving difficult as most Russians were not enthusiastic about the Syrian operation in the first place and popular support has been declining.


Turkey wants to create a security zone on the Syrian side of the border that has no Kurds or Islamic terrorists in it. Turkey also wants to show the Sunni Moslem world that it can handle Iranian aggression (without going to war with Iran) and keep the Israelis out of Lebanon and Syria. Turkey is willing to play diplomatic games with Russia and Iran to achieve these goals as well as send troops into Syria to fight, and get killed. .

The U.S. wants to ensure that ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) does not reestablish itself in Syria. To help with that the American are doing what they can to help the local Kurds maintain autonomy in northeast Syria (east of the Euphrates) where the Kurds have always been dominant. Secondary objectives are keeping Iran, Turley and Russia out of Syria. The U.S. and Israel are allies and any attack on Israel will trigger American intervention on the Israeli side. But short of that the Americans are quite blunt about stating that their troops are in Syria to deal with terrorists, not Iranian preparations for an attack on Israel. The Americans will not stop Kurds in the northeast from going to the aid of Kurds defending Afrin. The Turks asked the Americans to stop the Kurds and the U.S. refused.


Syria in general wants all the fighting to stop but the minority Assad dictatorship wants to resume ruling all of Syria and the Syrian rebels want Assad gone.

Iraq would like less violence in Syria and less Iranian interference in Iraq. Iraq also wants its Kurds to be less independent and reduce Islamic terrorist activity in Iraq.

All this can get confusing. For example Israel has persuaded Russia to do what it can to prevent Iran from assembling, arming and positioning a large force of non-Iranian forces to attack Israel. Russia has limited ability to block Iranian efforts but does what it can. Iran is building bases to support a large force of Lebanese (Hezbollah), Syrians (whichever Shia Syrians it can recruit) and lots of foreign Shia mercenaries (mainly Afghans, Iraqis other non-Iranian Shia) in parts of Syria where Russia does not have much military power on the ground and Russian air power cannot occupy ground or otherwise interfere with what Iran is doing. Russia does not want Iran starting a war with Israel but as a practical matter Iran is pretty irrational when it comes to Israel and cannot be stopped by Russian, Turkish or American threats. Russia has publicly criticized Iran for regularly calling for the destruction of Israel. Russia has also sided with Turkey in disagreements with Iran over strategy and tactics in Syria. Russia still considers Iran an ally, but a flawed one that really should work on their bad habits. Currently Turley, Russia and Iran all say they are working out their differences and continuing to cooperate in Syria.


The Afrin Angle

On January 20th Turkey began an offensive into northwest Syria against Afrin a town northwest of Aleppo city and long controlled by Syrian Kurds. Turkey is determined to make Afrin part of a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Turkish border. The Assads and Iran are supporting Syrian Kurds defending Afrin. The Assads, Iran and the Syrian Kurds can all agree that keeping the Turks out is a good thing. So far the Turks have suffered about 300 dead but 80 percent of those are FSA rebels working with the Turks. The defenders have suffered heavier losses and continue to hold onto most of the territory they controlled before the Turkish offensive began with FSA (non-sectarian Free Syrian Army) and Turkish forces attacking in at least five different columns. The Turks have air support and larger numbers, or did until Kurdish and Syrian reinforcements showed up in late February. The Turks claim they have killed, captured or chased away about 3,000 Kurdish fighters in and around Afrin since January.


The Kurds east of the Euphrates have less to worry about because the presence of American troops there (to supply air strikes, training and advice) keeps the Turks out, as well as the Assads, Russians and Iranians. The Syrians have always been practical when it came to forming needed alliances and this is especially true with the Kurds. But there are different groups of Kurds. Thus the Kurds west of the Euphrates are not “American supported” and vulnerable while those east of the river definitely are. The Kurds on both sides of the river share the same goal of Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria but the Turks have insisted that there be no Kurdish forces west of the river and are willing to go to war over that and they are doing so with the help of thousands of FSA rebels.

SDF considers the Turkish offensive against Afrin as another Turk move to help ISIL and other Islamic terrorists in Syria. Much of the fighting for the Turks is being done by Syrian FSA rebels who had once been allies of the SDF. But the FSA and SDF were also rivals and many FSA rebels accepted Turkish offers to work with Turkish troops to clear Kurdish forces from the Syrian side of the border and then run this “neutral zone” under Turkish protection. At the same time American forces in the northeast note Assad forces are massing near American bases and may attempt to advance. The Assads are willing to have an autonomous Kurdish northeast but want Syrian troops to have at least a token presence in the northeast and want the Americans gone. That last condition will be difficult to achieve. The Americans have made it clear they are in Syria to deal with ISIL and other Islamic terrorist threats. Syria has long been a sanctuary for Islamic terror groups and the United States plans to stay in Syria until convinced that the traditional Syrian policy of offering sanctuary to all manner of terrorists is a thing of the past. That may be difficult because the Assads have long depended on that policy for all sorts of reasons.


Russia Makes A Big Mistake

Russia took a chance trying to embarrass American troops in northeast Syria. The February 7th advance by Russian and Syrian forces was quickly repulsed by American firepower. The Russian force had no air support or anti-aircraft weapons and no backup plan other than for the survivors to retreat as quickly as possible. The Russians were hoping to push American troops out of a base near oil fields east of the Euphrates. The Russian force suffered heavy losses which included about 200 Russian military contractors. The American did not publicize this but the Russians did because it was a great embarrassment for the Russians.

Iran Makes A Bigger Army

Iran appears to control most of the military forces available to the Assads but is careful how these forces are used. The Iranian controlled militias are better armed, trained and led than the Syrian military. The Iranians maintain strict standards. Local militias who will not cooperate are cut off. Since Iran pays its irregulars this Iranian support is often critical. When a local militia cannot pay its fighters the group often falls apart. The Assads take advantage of this by allowing the unpaid militiamen to join the Syrian Army (which these militiamen are technically deserters from.)


The Iranian forces includes 3,000 Iranian personnel, 8,000 Hezbollah fighters (with more on call in Lebanon) and some 70,000 pro-Iran militias. About a fifth of these are foreign Shia mercenaries recruited, armed and led by Iranians. The rest are local pro-Assad militias that are equipped (and often paid) by Iran. Russia is the main source of logistic, technical, air and diplomatic (via a UN veto) support. But Iran has the most armed people on the ground. To make matters worse the main function of the Iranian ground forces is to prepare for a war with Israel.

The Americans

While there are only about two thousand U.S. troops in Syria there are more than five times as many providing support from nearby airbases and even more distant facilities, including intel and other analysts back in the U.S. but on call 24/7 via satellite comms. In this way the United States continues to monitor ISIL activity in Iraq and Syria and conduct airstrikes daily. So far this year this has been 2-4 airstrikes a day. Most of these airstrikes are still in Syria while in Iraq F-16s, ground attack and armed helicopters from the Iraqi air force provide dozens of sorties a day. There are some American helicopter gunships stationed in Syria but otherwise the airpower comes from Iraq or other bases in the region.


Grinding Down Ghouta

Ignoring the bad publicity over airstrikes against civilians, Syrian troops split the rebel-controlled Ghouta suburbs (15 kilometers east of Damascus) district outside Damascus apart. The ground advance came after two weeks of artillery fire and airstrikes that began on February 18th. At first the Syrian troops and Iranian mercenaries could not move forward but in the last week that changed and now the rebels holding Ghouta abandoned territory to better defend two isolated rebel controlled areas. The bombardment and ground fighting has left nearly 900 civilians dead.

Responding to criticism that Russian airstrikes in Syria (Ghouta) have killed so many civilians since mid-February, Russia pointed out that the Russian airstrikes are directed at Islamic terror groups among the rebels and that Russia has a less restrictive ROE (Rules of Engagement) and that is not going to change. The Ghouta fighting has been particularly intense so far in 2018 and has left the Assads frustrated in their effort to capture what is one of the last rebel strongholds around Damascus. This 100 square kilometer (40 square miles) enclave held over 300,000 people at the beginning of the year and was the scene of a major chemical weapons attack in 2013. In mid-2017 the Ghouta area was controlled by over 10,000 armed rebels and at the end of the year that had not changed much. There are about six rebel factions, most of them Islamic terror groups divided between those associated with al Qaeada and the rest supported by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil states. These factions have spent a lot of time fighting, or feuding, with each other. Despite that the Ghouta rebels have tied down a lot of Assad forces to keep an eye on them and the rebels will cooperate in defending the area if attacked. In July 2017 Russian military police established about a dozen checkpoints in the Ghouta area and that was as much to reassure the people in the area that Russian and Syrian air strikes would not return but to also monitor movements of known rebels. But the rebels kept shooting, despite ceasefires and more pro-government forces set up patrols around the rebel controlled area. In early 2018 the government tightened the blockade in an effort to literally starve the rebels out. This works better during the cold weather and this has caused growing hardship even though some food and other supplies continue to get into Ghouta. But not enough is smuggled in to support all the people in rebel held areas. Even when the UN is allowed to deliver supplies only food is allowed in with medical supplies being seized as forbidden items. Destroying the rebel presence in Ghouta is a high priority for the government. As long as that rebel presence exists outside the capital Assad claims of having taken back control of Syria are suspect.


Corruption

For Syrians a major casualty of the civil war has been the growth of corruption. Syria ranks 178th out of 180 countries (173 out of 176 last year). Progress, or lack thereof, can be seen in the annual Transparency International Corruption Perception Index where countries are measured on a 1 (most corrupt) to 100 (not corrupt) scale. The most corrupt nations (usually Syria/14, South Sudan/12 and Somalia/9) have a rating of under 15 while of the least corrupt (New Zealand and Denmark) are over 85.

The current Syrian score is 14 (13 in 2016) compared to 62 (64) for Israel, 18 (17) for Iraq, 40 (41) for Turkey, 49 (46) for Saudi Arabia, 28 (28) for Lebanon, 32 (32) for Pakistan, 28 (26) for Bangladesh, 33 (36) for the Maldives, 38 (36) for Sri Lanka, 40 (40) for India, 15 (15) for Afghanistan, 30 (28) for Burma, 29 (29) for Russia, 41 (40) for China, 17 (14) for Libya, 71 (66) for the UAE (United Arab Emirates), 75 (74) for the United States, 27 (28) for Nigeria, 43 (45) for South Africa, 73 (72) for Japan, 37 (37) for Indonesia and 54 (53) for South Korea,. A lower corruption score is common with nations in economic trouble and problems dealing with Islamic terrorism and crime in general. Syria’s corruption score has gotten much worse since 2012, when it was 26.


March 7, 2018: The SDF in the northeast is sending 1,700 of its fighters to help defend Afrin. These SDF reinforcements are from the Euphrates River Valley, where they were searching for ISIL groups hiding out there. This is the main reason the Americans are in the northeast and the loss of so many SDF forces may be a problem for continued American assistance.

March 6, 2018: In the north, at the Russian controlled Hmeimim airbase a Russian An-26 twin-turboprop transport crashed while landing in clear weather. The six crew and 33 passengers (most of them officers including a general) died. The aircraft was coming from Aleppo and the cause was apparently equipment failure.

March 5, 2018: In response to its numerous (over a dozen) tanks losses, mostly from ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) Turkey obtained a manufacturing license to build the Ukrainian Zaslon-L APS (Active Protection System) for at least a hundred of its Leopard 2 and M60 tank. Zaslon consists of a radar to detect incoming missiles and small rockets to rush out and disable the incoming threat. A complete APS weighs between 500 and 1,000 kg (depending on the type of vehicle it is installed on). Zaslon has been available since 2010 and has worked in combat with Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. The Turkish firm that is to manufacture Zazlon had been working on its own APS but had not gotten it to work yet. The Turks were unable to obtain APS from the other two major manufacturers (Israel and Russia) because there are diplomatic problems with those two.


March 4, 2018: In the northeast the American supported military training program for the local Kurds is turning out over a thousand trained troops each month. The Syrian Kurds have over 50,000 experienced fighters (including female units) but the training program turns these fighters (most of them part-timers) into trained soldiers with an understanding of common tactics, weapons and procedures in general.

March 3, 2018: Responding to Israeli requests Russia blocked Iranian efforts to set up a naval base at the port of Tartus. This is where Russia has already built a facility (and has a long-term lease) to handle the needs of its warships operating off the coast. Tartus is also where Russian military cargo for Russian and Syrian forces is unloaded. Meanwhile Iran has built a new base 16 kilometers northwest of Damascus and is apparently planning more. These large bases tend to get hit with Israeli airstrikes before long but apparently Iran is hoping to improve air defenses enough to cause the Israelis some losses. Israel believes Iran has three large bases in Syria and seven smaller “tactical” ones near areas where there is active fighting. Iran is also bringing in more rockets, missiles, ammunitions and weapons for the 80,000 militiamen it supports in Syria. In response Israel is preparing for an Iranian attack from Lebanon and/or Syria. In addition to moving more troops to the Syrian border, improving the security fence and anti-aircraft/rocket defense Israel is also making deals with rebels on the Syrian side of the border in an effort to establish a 40 kilometers deep buffer zone. Israel has long provided some support (usually medical, in Israeli hospitals) for cooperative Syrian rebels. Now that support includes material aid and airstrikes and artillery fire against shared threats. Nevertheless Iran keeps pushing its mercenary forces closer to the Israeli border.


March 2, 2018: Deaths from the civil war left over 2,000 dead in February. The Syrian war has killed at least 400,000 since 2011 with 39,000 killed in 2017, down from 49,000 in 2016. While we are at it, how many people has the Assad government of Syria killed so far? By the end of 2017 ISIL lost control of the last bits of territory it had controlled in Iraq and Syria since mid-2014. Most of Syria is now back under the control of the Assads, although most of the population is not. In 2011 there were 21 million people living in Syria, now there are about 14 million. Most of the lost population is still alive, but outside Syria (mainly in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan). The Syrian civil war saw the Assad government deliberately attack pro-rebel civilians. Since that included most of the Syrian population the immediate goal was not to kill them (although over 100,000 direct deaths were probably the result) but to get the pro-rebel Syrians to flee their homes and, preferably, the country. About a third of the population did just that. Many of these refugees want to return, but only if it is safe. That may not be for a while. Over the last three months the Assads have waged an artillery and aerial attack on 300,000 civilians in rebel controlled suburbs of Damascus. That campaign has killed about 3,000 civilians so far.


March 1, 2018: Iran called for negotiations to work out an end to the fighting in Syria and Yemen. This is another way of saying “we can’t win so what will you offer us so we stop trying.” While this means the end of the Shia rebellion in Yemen the Iranians are not likely to give up their military presence in Syria.

February 21, 2018: Two Russian Su-57 stealth fighter prototypes appear to have been flown to the Russian air base in Syria. The Russians apparently plan to test some Su-57 features in a combat environment. The Su-57 is nowhere near ready for combat but it can fly and some of its features (limited stealth, some electronics) are operational. Besides, it is great publicity for an aircraft Russia hopes to export someday. The two American stealth fighters are operational in Syria. F-22s have flown some missions and Israel has declared its F-35I operational, the first non-U.S. user of that new aircraft to do so.

February 20, 2018: Iranian backed Shia militia were sent to Afrin to assist the Kurds there in defending Syrian territory from foreign (Turkish) invasion. The Syrian Kurds have always been willing to cooperate with the Assads as long as it helped the Kurds. Russia opposed this Iranian decision to confront the Turks but did not halt air support for Assad forces.


February 19, 2018: Russian officials admitted that the “dozens” of foreign troops killed in eastern Syria during a February 7th battle were not Russian military personnel but were working for Russia. Many of the dead were Russian and the rest were from nations that used to be part of the Soviet Union. The official admitted that the many wounded Russian military contractors were being treated in Russian military medical facilities in Syria. By now the extent of Russian participation, and loss, in the attack became known and it was much larger (about 200 dead) than anyone thought. Initially Russia would admit that only five Russians were killed. But it turned out all the “Russian” casualties were military contractors from the Wagner Group, the largest military contractor in Russia and active in several areas, mainly Ukraine (Donbas) and Syria. The contractors handle security and, in the case of the Deir Ezzor attack, form special combat units normally used to go after ISIL or other difficult foes on the ground. Working for Wagner is not a military secret in Russia and death benefits (up to $88,000 depending on rank and job) are paid promptly and in most cases the body is quietly returned to the family. Friends and family of the Wagner casualties will usually discuss the loss on the Internet and after a while an accurate estimate of contractor casualties is known. The contractors themselves sign a non-disclosure agreement but that does not apply to family and friends. Posts to the Internet or other communications with family tend to become public after a while.


Russian military personnel in Syria are paid nearly as well as the Wagner personnel and receive bonuses in addition to their regular pay. But deaths among Russian military personnel in Syria, even though all of them are volunteers, is a much bigger deal back in Russia than the death of a Russian mercenary.

February 18, 2018: Russian diplomats told Israel that Russia would support Israel if Iran attacked. However Russia was not convinced that Israel shooting down an Iranian UAV over Israel on the 10th was an Iranian attack. After all, Syria or Hezbollah (which Russia considers a “Lebanese” not an Iranian force) have been using Iranian UAVs for a long time. This was an example of how unreliable Russian “support” is. Other Middle Eastern allies of Russia, like Iran and Turkey, have noticed the same thing. Russia apparently also persuaded Israel to not destroy Iranian weapons (missile and rocket) factories in Syria and Lebanon after the February 10th incident where they destroyed an Iranian UAV that had entered Israeli air space. Israel and Russia are continually making deals involving decisions like this but in the end Israel will do what it has to do to defend itself and Russia openly acknowledges that.


February 17, 2018: Russian military personnel in Syria have been ordered to stop using smart phone and to replace them as soon as possible with older models that lack GPS, high speeds and other features that are used by many commercial UAVs and quad copters. The frequencies used by smart phones capable of controlling small UAVs will be jammed around Russian bases in Syria not only to make it more difficult for quad copters to be used for mass attacks but to prevent Russian personnel from posting military information on the Internet.

February 10, 2018: In southern Syria (Golan Heights and Israel border) an Israeli F-16I was shot down by a Russian built S-200 (SA-5) surface to air missile. This was but part of a very complex day. It began when an Iranian UAV (launched from an Iranian base in central Syria) entered Israeli air space and was shot down 90 seconds later. In retaliation Israel sent eight F-16Is to hit the Iranian base, especially the operations center for the larger Iranian UAVs operating over Syria. This facility was destroyed and some Iranians were killed. Israeli warplanes had dealt with the SA-5 for years and could destroy all the Syrian SA-5 launchers and radars. But Israel had an understanding with Russia, a nation that was something of a frenemy in Syria and the Russians wanted the SA-5s left alone. Even though the SA-5s were older tech they still posed some risk to Israeli (and American) warplanes and that is what happened to the F-16I today. Post-crash investigation determined the cause was pilot error (not implementing countermeasures properly.) The aircraft crashed on the Israeli side of the border and the crew of two safely ejected. Israel then prepared to carry out their plan to destroy the Syrian air defense system when the Russian leader called the Israeli leader and asked that the Israeli attack be put on hold. Given the relationship Israel and Russia had developed over many decades, Israel agreed. But now the Russians owed Israel a favor and the Israelis consider that another weapon to use against the Iranian threat in Syria.


Stanislav Matveev left his home in the Ural Mountains in September to join a Russian private military company. Five months later, Matveev was dead, killed in a U.S. airstrike on Feb. 7 in eastern Syria.

Matveev’s widow, Yelena Matveeva, wants answers from the Kremlin about why her husband is dead. By some accounts, scores of Russian contractors were killed.

“I’d like everyone to know about my husband,” she said in an interview with Znak, a Russian news site. “And not only about my husband, but about all the boys who died there so stupidly. Where were they sent to, and why? They didn’t even have protection, they were like pigs sent to slaughter!”

But just who sent them? There’s no easy answer.

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The Ministry of Defense and the Kremlin do not officially associate with the private military companies, but media reports and researchers say they have pieced together enough evidence to suggest that the mercenaries are being employed, or at least directed, by the Russian military. The Kremlin denies this.


Little is known publicly about the military groups and how they operate, but they’ve gained a higher profile since the Feb. 7 airstrike in Syria. The U.S. said it was responding to an attack by hundreds of forces supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad near the Syrian city of Deir al Zor.

Russian media have reported that at least eight of those killed were Russian mercenaries, though some reports put the death toll at close to 200 — an assertion Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dismissed as “misinformation” from the Western press.

“There were not 400, not 200, not 1,000, and not 10,” Zakharova said.

The government has confirmed five, but not eight, deaths, while stressing the men were not members of the Russian armed forces. According to interviews with family members of the eight identified, the mercenaries all were in Syria on contract with a private military company called the Wagner Group.

The company is believed to be organized by Dmitry Utkin, a former Ukrainian citizen who fought in eastern Ukraine on the side of the separatist rebels and later formed the Wagner Group in 2014. The group is named after Utkin’s nom de guerre.


Like Utkin, many of the Wagner fighters fought first in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed militias have been waging a separatist movement against Ukrainian forces since 2014.

Wagner has not been tied to reports of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, but investigative journalists at the St. Petersburg, Russia-based Fontanka news website have reported that one of Wagner’s sponsors is Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Kremlin-connected entrepreneur. Known as “Putin’s chef,” Prigozhin owns a St. Petersburg internet troll factory.

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Both Prigozhin and the troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, were indicted Friday in the United States and charged with illegally using social media platforms to sow political discord in the U.S. Twelve other Russians associated with the troll factory and two Russian companies were also indicted.

The Ukrainian conflict has proven to be a steady source for Wagner’s recruitment. According to Russian media, most of the Wagner fighters killed in the U.S. airstrike on Feb. 7 also served at one point with the separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.


Because private military companies are illegal in Russia, the company is registered in Argentina. Most military analysts estimate there are 2,000 mercenaries in Syria working for Wagner.

Yelena Matveeva said her husband, Stanislav, was home for about a year after fighting in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine before telling her he was leaving on an unspecified mission. She told reporters she knew he had made contact with Wagner representatives while in eastern Ukraine.

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Private military companies are not unique to Russia. Such companies provided services to the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whereas the Americans used mercenaries for security and stabilization after gaining and holding new territory, the Russians use mercenaries to fight the battles themselves, said Michael Kofman, a Russian military and security analyst with the Wilson Center, a think tank in Washington.

The use of mercenaries would help the Kremlin maintain plausible deniability of direct Russian involvement in conflicts, such as in Ukraine, and avoid public accounting for high casualty rates, said Vladimir Frolov, a Russian political analyst.


The Kremlin has denied also Western intelligence accusations that Russian troops have participated in the separatist fighting in the Donbass region.

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When fighters of Russian origin have been captured or killed in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin has called them volunteers or enlisted men “on vacation.” Military analysts in the West and Russia scoff at that characterization. Frolov said the government is likely coordinating the efforts of mercenaries in Syria as well.

“It is inconceivable for me to think that [the Russian mercenaries in Syria] are not tightly coordinated with the Russian military command,” he said. “Somebody supplies all their weapons and combat gear and fire support.”

In addition, the Fontanka investigation and other Russian researchers have found evidence that the mercenary groups have a “boot camp” in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region at a facility owned and operated by the Ministry of Defense.

“We don’t know concretely who is paying them, but they are supported, deployed and moved about by Russian military, so we can draw some conclusions from that,” said Kofman.


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The way the Kremlin is handling the deaths of the mercenaries is beginning to wear on Russian families whose loved ones have been killed in a war that the Kremlin wants to paint as a low-impact conflict.

“Domestically, this is all bad press, and bad press a month and a half ahead of the election,” Kofman said.

Russia has a presidential election on March 18. It is widely expected that Vladimir Putin will win what will be his fourth term as president.

More than 30,000 people attended the funeral on Feb. 8, in Voronezh, Russia, for Roman Filipov, an Su-25 jet pilot who died in action in Syria. (Vadim Savitsky / AFP/Getty Images)

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The Russian government’s response to mercenaries’ deaths has been a stark contrast with that of Maj. Roman Filipov, a pilot buried in Russia a day after the U.S. airstrike.

Rebels previously affiliated with Al Qaeda shot down Filipov’s Sukhoi-25 jet in Syria. The major managed to eject from the plane and parachute to the ground. Surrounded by insurgents, Filipov blew himself up with a grenade in order to avoid being captured.


Filipov’s story was covered widely on state media. More than 30,000 people attended his funeral. Putin posthumously awarded Filipov the title of Hero of Russia, the country’s highest honor.

It’s an honor Matveeva and other widows of mercenaries killed on Feb. 7 feel their loved ones deserve. “I want the government to avenge them,” she said. “I want the memory of the boys to stay with their wives, so that the children can be proud of their fathers.”

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In a daily press call this month, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, was asked by a reporter if there would be a day of mourning for the Russians killed in the Feb. 7 airstrike.

“Because of what? I don’t get why a mourning period needs to be declared,” Peskov said.

Ayres is a special correspondent.


After protracted domestic unrest in 2020 in the form of massive protests attempting to oust Belarus’ president Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the country’s government is teetering on the verge of collapse. Moscow has rushed in to fill the vacuum. Lukashenka has suddenly fallen in line with Moscow’s agenda, despite years of resistance to encroaching Russian economic influence. Now it is probable that Russia is facilitating a soft takeover of the former Soviet republic.

This week, NATO was alarmed at an announcement by Belarus’ defense ministry that a tank battalion would be moved near the border with Poland. Just a week earlier, there was news of an alarming buildup of Russian tanks on its Crimean border with Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned NATO that “additional measures” would be taken if troops were sent to aid Ukraine. On April 14 Russia warned the U.S. to stay out of the escalating situation “for its own good.”

Multiple high-level Russian officials (the Kremlin spokesperson, the outgoing Secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union State, and the outgoing Russian ambassador to Belarus) have issued statements denying the existence of plans to, for instance, merge the Russian and Belarussian states or armed forces. Because of these denials, NATO is in a hypervigilance mode of coordinated military activity near the Polish border. Nevertheless, the political situation in Minsk is transparent: Moscow has already deployed new diplomats to Belarus that have strong relationships with Vladimir Putin.


Moscow’s twenty-first-century ambitions to expand its sphere of influence were first tested in 2008 with the invasion of Georgia and then again with the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Since then, Russia has moved into the Donbas region of East Ukraine, where skirmishes between Russian-backed separatist militias and Ukrainian forces have been ongoing. The international community has come to expect an exercise of hard power from Russia.

This time, Russia’s strategy is much subtler than in previous iterations of expansionist acts. What is happening in Belarus amounts to soft aggression against the Belarusian people, who mobilized en masse to force Lukashenka out of office in 2020, and against NATO. The strategy, in this case, involves the movement toward cementing Belarus’ dependence on Russian transport networks, which Lukashenka previously avoided by moving exports through the Baltics. This is a significant sign of the Kremlin establishing economic control.

There are also ideological motives at play in this strategy. As was the case with Western Ukraine, civil society in Belarus has become considerably more pro-European in recent years. Belarusians are also re-examining their country's history from the lens of periods before Belarus was absorbed into the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth century; then, it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This shared history draws a straight line from modern Belarus to modern Poland and Lithuania, both solid NATO members.


According to Warsaw’s Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), over sixty percent of Belarusians believe their country should draw inspiration from periods when they were not ruled by Russia. Along with those imperial predecessors, a smaller number of respondents pointed at the Belarusian People’s Republic as a relatively positive example of a state that is independent in more than name, despite a brief existence as an anti-Bolshevik entity amid the fallout of the Russian Revolution.

Simultaneously, approval rates for Vladimir Putin in Belarus have been on the decline. A Chatham House poll reported a 34.6 increase in negative viewpoints of the Russian president since the beginning of the August 2020 protests.

Despite the difference in Moscow’s method for seizing control, the consequences will likely be the same as for its other adventures. There is currently a sanctions regime in place in Belarus, imposed by the U.S. and Europe, but no overt military action will follow because of the heavy Russian military presence, as was the case for Georgia, for Crimea, and for Eastern Ukraine.


For Russia’s military, having a presence in Belarus facilitates the creation of an enormous, relatively coherent bulwark against the West, and its position between the Baltics and Poland renders those countries even more accessible. Nor is Belarus far from the already-heavily armed oblast of Kaliningrad, also in the Baltic region.

Ultimately, the U.S. and NATO will have to continue to be vigilant and step up preparations for an outbreak of direct conflict with Russia in Eastern Europe, which is quickly becoming a potential war theater.

They will also have to continue building up defenses and deterrence measures in the region, particularly in Poland, which faces the most pressure on the most fronts from the presence of Russian troops.

Fortunately, that process had been underway prior to the coalescence of Russian forces in Belarus and Ukraine. As the “frontline” state which devotes the required two percent of GDP to NATO defenses, Poland has been gradually shifting its military spending toward increasing preparedness for overt Russian aggression. Poland has acquired both the F-35 fighter and the Patriot air defense system from the U.S., which are used by other NATO countries. The F-35 is especially important in European defense because it collects more intelligence than any other tactical aircraft—and is invisible to Russian radar.


What remains under discussion is whether Poland will also acquire the M1 Abrams tank to replace its 500 or so Russian-made tanks from the Soviet era. Being able to acquire the M1 would immediately alleviate some of the stress that Poland is under to find a replacement for those tanks in the face of the current predicament; Germany has no available Leopard tanks for sale, and Poland has not been able to become part of France and Germany’s Main Battle Tank coalition.

Sarah White is a Senior Research Analyst at Arlington’s Lexington Institute. The views expressed are the author’s own.


On August 19, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke at a joint news conference with Najla Mangoush, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Libya’s Government of National Unity. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, a reporter asked:

“What is the status of implementing the agreement on the withdrawal of foreign troops from Libya, since Turkey is reluctant to discuss this issue, and the other parties refuse to even recognize their presence in Libya?”

Lavrov denied that Turkey and other parties had refused to discuss the issue of troop withdrawals, saying the matter had been raised at the Second Berlin Conference on Libya held June 23.

"The withdrawal of these troops must necessarily take place and this process has to be organized step by step,” Lavrov said according to the state owned TASS news agency

“This is the main thing, and not the attempts to divert the discussion into a talk about the legitimate and illegitimate forces there."

That is misleading.


It is true that the Second Berlin Conference on Libya highlighted the need to remove foreign troops from that country. As Germany’s Foreign Ministry said in a press release on the conclusions of the conference: “All foreign forces and mercenaries need to be withdrawn from Libya without delay, and the security sector reformed and placed firmly under unified, civilian authority and oversight.”

Of note: the word “mercenaries.”

Lavrov pointedly failed to mention the private Russian troops who’ve been involved in the Libyan conflict since 2019, fighting on the side of the Libyan National Army of General Khalifa Haftar against the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord. That explains why Lavrov spoke of “attempts to divert the discussion towards discussing certain players’ legitimacy or lack of it” – because the Russian presence is controversial.

The Wagner “private military company” (PMC) presence has been known and reported on since 2018. Most recently, BBC on August 11 published a new investigation detailing the extent of Wagner’s operations and backing up claims that its soldiers may have been involved in crimes against Libyan civilians.


The BBC also found further evidence that Wagner is deeply tied to the Russian government, despite official denials.

Wagner’s ties to the Russian Ministry of Defense aren’t new.

Officially, private military companies have no legal standing in Russia. Wagner, however, was allowed to use Russian military training facilities and took part in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014. The company gained more attention for operating alongside the Russian military in Syria.

Although Wagner is on paper a private company, its owner, the restaurateur and caterer Yevgeny Prigozhin, reportedly has close ties to President Vladimir Putin and contracts with Russia’s military. Besides Ukraine, Syria, and Libya, Wagner mercenaries have also been involved in conflicts in the Central African Republic and Mozambique.

The BBC managed to acquire a Samsung tablet that belonged to a Wagner mercenary in Libya that contained information about the group’s activities in that country. Libyan intelligence services also provided the British outlet with a “shopping list” that included a wide variety of high-tech, Russian-made weapons and equipment used by the soldiers for hire.


The BBC interviewed witnesses who alleged that Wagner mercenaries had killed villagers and executed soldiers who had surrendered.

This is not the first time Wagner mercenaries have been accused of war crimes. In late June, the United Nations released a report on crimes allegedly committed by Wagner mercenaries working with the armed forces of the Central African Republic.

The Kremlin has categorically denied the war crimes accusations.

In October 2020, negotiators in Geneva brokered a ceasefire agreement to end fighting between the Government of National Accord and Haftar’s opposition movement. Under this agreement, foreign forces backing both sides were to be removed.

Earlier this year, however, there were signs that Russia’s mercenaries might stay. CNN reported in January that Wagner forces had built a large trench, spanning nearly 70 kilometers, from the town of Sirte south to the Al Jufra airbase. The trench appeared to be part of a system of defensive fortifications and could be seen in satellite photos.


In late April, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Laboratory found open-source evidence suggesting that Wagner mercenaries, who according to the ceasefire deal were supposed to leave Libya within 90 days after January 1, 2021, remained in Libya past that deadline. Moreover, the lab claimed it had seen evidence that additional Wagner mercenaries may have been sent to Libya in early February.

Citing anonymous “sources on the ground,” the Turkish Daily Sabah claimed in April that 300 additional Russian mercenaries would be sent to Libya.

On July 24, the U.S. Department of Defense published a report claiming that Wagner mercenaries were still active in Libya. The report included satellite imagery showing Russian military equipment on airfields.


(Natural News) In 1949, sometime after the publication of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World (1931), who was then living in California, wrote to Orwell. Huxley had briefly taught French to Orwell as a student in high school at Eton.

(Article by Patricia McCarthy republished from AmericanThinker.com)

Huxley generally praises Orwell’s novel, which to many seemed very similar to Brave New World in its dystopian view of a possible future. Huxley politely voices his opinion that his own version of what might come to pass would be truer than Orwell’s. Huxley observed that the philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is sadism, whereas his own version is more likely, that controlling an ignorant and unsuspecting public would be less arduous, less wasteful by other means. Huxley’s masses are seduced by a mind-numbing drug, Orwell’s with sadism and fear.

The most powerful quote In Huxley’s letter to Orwell is this:

Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.

Aldous Huxley.

Could Huxley have more prescient? What do we see around us? Masses of people dependent upon drugs, legal and illegal. The majority of advertisements that air on television seem to be for prescription drugs, some of them miraculous but most of them unnecessary. Then comes COVID, a quite possibly weaponized virus from the Fauci-funded-with-taxpayer-dollars lab in Wuhan, China. The powers that be tragically deferred to the malevolent Fauci who had long been hoping for just such an opportunity. Suddenly, there was an opportunity to test the mRNA vaccines that had been in the works for nearly twenty years. They could be authorized as an emergency measure but were still highly experimental. These jabs are not really vaccines at all, but a form of gene therapy. There are potential disastrous consequences down the road. Government experiments on the public are nothing new.

Since there have been no actual, long-term trials, no one who contributed to this massive drug experiment knows what the long-term consequences might be. There have been countless adverse injuries and deaths already for which the government-funded vaccine producers will suffer no liability. With each passing day, new side-effects have begun to appear: blood clots, seizures, heart failure.

As new adverse reactions become known despite the censorship employed by most media outlets, the more the Biden administration is pushing the vaccine, urging private corporations to make it mandatory for all employees. Colleges are making them mandatory for all students returning to campus.

The leftmedia are advocating the “shunning” of the unvaccinated. The self-appointed virtue-signaling Democrats are furious at anyone and everyone who declines the jab. Why? If they are protected, why do they care? That is the question. Same goes for the ridiculous mask requirements. They protect no one but for those in operating rooms with their insides exposed, yet even the vaccinated are supposed to wear them!

Months ago, herd immunity was near. Now Fauci and the CDC say it will never be achieved? Now the Pfizer shot will necessitate yearly booster shots. Pfizer expects to make $21B this year from its COVID vaccine! Anyone who thinks this isn’t about money is a fool. It is all about money, which is why Fauci, Gates, et al. were so determined to convince the public that HCQ and ivermectin, both of which are effective, prophylactically and as treatment, were not only useless, but dangerous. Both of those drugs are tried, true, and inexpensive. Many of those thousands of N.Y. nursing home fatalities might have been prevented with the use of one or both of those drugs. Those deaths are on the hands of Cuomo and his like-minded tyrants drunk on power.

Months ago, Fauci, et al. agreed that children were at little or no risk of getting COVID, of transmitting it, least of all dying from it. Now Fauci is demanding that all teens be vaccinated by the end of the year! Why? They are no more in danger of contracting it now than they were a year ago. Why are parents around this country not standing up to prevent their kids from being guinea pigs in this monstrous medical experiment? And now they are “experimenting” on infants. Needless to say, some have died. There is no reason on Earth for teens, children, and infants to be vaccinated. Not one.

Huxley also wrote this:

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” ?Crome Yellow

Perhaps this explains the left’s hysterical impulse to force these untested shots on those of us who have made the decision to go without it. If they’ve decided that it is the thing to do, then all of us must submit to their whims. If we decide otherwise, it gives them the righteous right to smear all of us whom they already deplore.

As C.J. Hopkins has written, the left means to criminalize dissent. Those of us who are vaccine-resistant are soon to be outcasts, deprived of jobs and entry into everyday businesses. This kind of discrimination should remind everyone of …oh, Germany three quarters of a century ago. Huxley also wrote, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” That is precisely what the left is up to, what BLM is planning, what Critical Race Theory is all about.

Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said these new vaccines are “hacking the software of life.” Vaccine-promoters claim he never said this, but he did. Bill Gates called the vaccines “an operating system” to the horror of those promoting it, a Kinsley gaffe. Whether it is or isn’t hardly matters at this point, but these statements by those behind the vaccines are a clue to what they have in mind.

There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it.

This is exactly what the left is working so hard to effect: a pharmacologically compromised population happy to be taken care of by a massive state machine. And while millions of people around the world have surrendered to the vaccine and mask hysteria, millions more, about 1.3 billion, want no part of this government vaccine mania.

In his letter to Orwell, Huxley ended with the quote cited above and again here because it is so profound:

Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.

Huxley nailed the left more than seventy years ago, perhaps because leftists have never changed throughout the ages.

Correction: This post has been updated to make clear that it was Huxley, not Orwell, who was living in California.

Read more at: AmericanThinker.com and Fascism.news


Morale was so low among the ranks loyal to Libya’s recognised government, a clutch of fighters secretly planned on deserting the battlefield if they were forced to take on the Russians.

The highly-trained mercenaries – hired to support renegade general Khalifa Haftar in his bid to take Tripoli – had emerged from the snarl of Libya’s latest war as the most feared force.

For the malaise of Tripoli fighters, better acquainted with shooting Kalashnikovs in flip flops, the lethal accuracy of the Russians was terrifying. Their sniping capability had become legendary among the rank-and-file.

So when the orders came to march south on the enemy positions, a group of fighters huddled together to discuss how they might escape.

The target was Tarhuna, a crumbling one-street town 60km south of the capital Tripoli. With two tiny airstrips, the little-known backwater had morphed into a vital supply line for Haftar since he launched his offensive last April to take the capital from the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).


If the town fell, the renegade general would lose his last foothold in west Libya and the GNA would likely win the war.

The problem was Moscow’s mercenaries in the way.

“We were planning on running away. We were very afraid of the Russians because of their target accuracy. They are incredibly professional in using artillery,” one government fighter admitted, with embarrassment.

Libya's faultlines (The Independent)

“Our main goal was staying alive. It is hard to articulate the fear”.

But before the GNA fighters had even left Tripoli, footage was circulating online showing what appeared to be Russian combatants in trucks and cargo planes retreating from the frontlines.

When the fighters finally arrived in Tarhuna the mercenaries had melted away.

“That was the beginning of the collapse of Haftar’s house of cards,” said one GNA military official in Tripoli about Haftar’s loss of the town on 5 June.

“It was the main factor that led to Haftar’s forces withdrawal from the other places,” he added.


Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), now beating a hasty retreat hundreds of kilometres down the coast from Tripoli, deny any foreign fighters exist among its ranks. In interviews with The Independent, its commanders have repeatedly dismissed these allegations as “propaganda” and “lies spread by the GNA and terrorists”.

But UN investigators believe at least 1,200 Russians were hired by shadowy Russian private military companies like Wagner to help Haftar win his war against the GNA.

What caused hundreds of them to withdraw at such a crucial moment is the talk of the town back in Tripoli. Rumours abound of a last-minute deal struck between Ankara and Moscow to allow the mercenaries to exit the frontline unscathed, preventing a potentially deadly confrontation between the two world powers.

“Given the impact on the morale of Haftar’s soldiers, the withdrawal made us feel for sure there was a deal,” said one Syrian mercenary with the GNA.

“All the resistance we faced on all fronts vanished in one night.”


The concluding episode of Haftar’s disastrous attempt to take Tripoli is an illuminating snapshot of how mercenaries have steered victories and defeats in the latest chapter of Libya’s messy civil war.

With wealthy foreign patrons and thousands of soldiers-for-hire deployed on both sides, what was once skirmishes between squabbling fiefdoms of militias has morphed into the world’s newest proxy war.

It has altered the landscape of the country forever and set world super powers including Turkey, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates, against each other.

As one senior diplomat, involved in trying to enforce the UN’s arms embargo, put it: “Libya is the new Syria” – but this time on Europe’s doorstep.

A month-long investigation by The Independent into this murky mercenary underworld shows a labyrinth of recruitment stretching from Moscow to Damascus from Idlib to Istanbul.

Interviews with western diplomats briefed on an ongoing UN probe into arms embargo violations, US military officials, Syrian and Libyan combatants, as well as over a dozen interviews with people across both countries, show the utilisation of the poorest Syrians at the heart of it.


Hired to fight on both sides in Libya, Syrians are once again battling each other – but this time over someone else’s war-wrecked capital thousands of kilometres from home.

April is the cruellest month

Last Spring, things in Libya were looking up.

The UN had scheduled a peace conference in the country’s stunning desert city of Ghadames.

The latest bouts of fighting had shuddered to a halt. In January of that year, police officers from the country’s rival governments had even met in Benghazi to discuss cooperation.

But in April, just days before the peace talks were due to start, the veneer of progress came crashing down. Backed by Emirati air power and later Russian boots on the ground, Haftar launched his ill-fated offensive to oust the Turkish-supported government from Tripoli.

Haftar, nominally linked to a rival administration in the east, has long rejected the GNA as being puppeted by Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which he and his foreign backers, including Egypt and the UAE, deem to be terrorists.


The GNA, which is recognised by the UN but guarded by brigades of often unsavoury militias, has the support of countries including Turkey and Italy. It regards Haftar as a war criminal who would be king.

Increasingly alarmed, the UN has repeatedly and futilely warned that the flood of fighters and weaponry into Libya violates a UN arms embargo. The UN’s acting Libya envoy last month pleaded with the Security Council to stop “a massive influx of weaponry, equipment and mercenaries”.

It is hard to keep up with the tapestry of foreign operatives fighting for scraps of the country that has limped through multiple conflicts over the nine years since Muammar Gaddafi was killed next to a storm drain.

Territory is not measured in metres-squared but in footholds of influence across the region that can be played off each other. For the mercenary companies – like Russia’s infamous Wagner group – Libya is a seemingly bottomless purse.

Haftar started the war on Tripoli in April 2019 with the upper hand, making quick gains with powerful Wing Loong II drones, fighter jets and Pantsir defence systems that western diplomats believe were provided by the UAE and later Russia. Both countries repeatedly deny any allegations of involvement in the war.


On the ground the general’s forces were swelled by an injection of mercenaries, which a UN-commissioned probe says included some 1,200 Russian mercenaries and up to 2,000 Syrian fighters recruited from regime areas of Syria. (The Independent’s own investigation put the number of Syrians at closer to 800).

International diplomats briefed on the UN investigation told The Independent an additional contingent of over 2,000 Sudanese fighters, many of whom arrived during a surge of recruitment in November, also gave Haftar an edge.

But the tide turned with Turkey’s formal entry into the foray that was approved by the Turkish parliament in January despite it being a violation of the arms embargo.

Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Show all 33 1 /33 Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A picture taken on April 11, 2019, shows fighters loyal to military commander Khalifa Haftar imprisoned by forces from the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA) waves from a crater reportedly caused by an air strike west of the city of Aziziah, some 60 kilometres southwest of the capital Tripoli, on April 14, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA get into position during clashes with forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar south of the capital Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara, on April 25, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Libyans, some wearing yellow vests, wave national flags and chant slogans during a demonstration against Khalifa Haftar in Tripoli's Martyrs' Square on April 26, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures African migrants who fled battle zones in Libya gather at a detention center in Zawiya, west of the capital Tripoli, on April 27, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA load a cannon during clashes with forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, in Espiaa on April 29, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA carries a bullet belt as he and fellow fighters hold a position during clashes with forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, in Espiaa, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the Libyan capital Tripoli on April 29, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA stands on a rooftop as smoke rises in the distance during clashes with forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar, in Espiaa, about 25 miles south of the Libyan capital Tripoli on April 29, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (L) and Chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya and Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord (GNA) of Libya, Fayez al-Sarraj stand to attention during a welcoming ceremony upon Farraj's arrival for their meeting on May 7, 2019 in Rome AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA gesture near the frontline during clashes against forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar, on May 21, 2019 in the Salah al-Din area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA fire a heavy machine gun on May 21, 2019 in the Salah al-Din area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA fires a heavy machine gun as a press photographer take pictures of the scene during clashes against forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, on May 25, 2019, in the Airport Road Area, south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA fires a heavy machine gun on June 1, 2019, in al-Sawani area, south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA take a rest near their weapons in the al-Sawani area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli during clashes with forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar, on June 19, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Migrants stand and walk outside at a detention centre used by the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) in the capital Tripoli's suburb of Tajoura on July 3, 2019, following an air strike on a nearby building that left dozens killed the previous night AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA open tank fire from their position in the al-Sawani area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli, on June 13, 2019 AFP/Getty Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA open fire from their position in the al-Sawani area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli on June 13, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A picture taken in Tripoli on June 29, 2019, shows fighters loyal to the GNA displaying Chinese-made shells bearing the markings of the United Arab Emirates (unseen on this side of the box), which were reportedly seized from forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar in Gharyan, 60 miles south of Tripoli. The United States said it was looking into a report that American anti-tank missiles were found by forces loyal to Libya's unity government at a captured rebel base AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA fires his gun during clashes in the capital Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara, on September 7, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Libyans check the site of an air strike in which three children were killed and others wounded on the southern outskirts of the capital Tripoli on October 14, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Khalifa Haftar leaves after talks with Greek Foreign Minister in Athens, on January 17, 2020, days ahead of a peace conference in Berlin. The talks came as world powers stepped up efforts for a lasting ceasefire AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A fighter with Libya's GNA fires rockets from a position near the town of Garabulli toward the city of Tarhuna, southwest of the capital Tripoli, held by the forces of Khalifa Haftar, on April 19, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A resident walks amidst the rubble of a building that was damaged when forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar shelled the residential neighbourhood of Znatah in Tripoli, held by the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), on May 1, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Smoke fumes rise above buildings in the Libyan capital Tripoli, during reported shelling by Khalifa Haftar's forces, on May 9, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A GNA fighter stands next to a destroyed car following bombardment earlier in the day in the residential Bab Bin Ghashir neighbourhood of Libya's capital Tripoli, on May 9, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Group Captain Muhammad Qanunu, military spokesperson of the Government of National Accord (GNA) forces, stands by a partially disassembled MiG 23 aircraft, after seizing Al-Watiya airbase, southwest of the capital Tripoli, on May 18, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Forces loyal to Libya's GNA parade a Russian-made Pantsir air defense system truck in the capital Tripoli on May 20, 2020, after its capture at al-Watiya airbase from forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA are pictured near the frontline during clashes against forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, on June 1, 2019, in al-Sawani area, south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP/Getty Libya’s messy civil war in pictures People pose for a group picture as they celebrate in the town of Tarhuna on June 5, 2020, after the area was taken over by pro-GNA forces from rival forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA stand outside a technical (pickup truck mounted with turret) at Tripoli International Airport, on the southern outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli on June 4, 2020, after the complex was taken over by pro-GNA forces following clashes with rival forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA stand atop a tank in the town of Tarhuna, about 65 kilometres southeast of the capital Tripoli on June 5, 2020, after the area was taken over by pro-GNA forces. The GNA said that it was back in full control of Tarhouna, the last stronghold of the forces of Khalifa Haftar AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA poses for a picture in the town of Tarhuna on June 5, 2020, after the area was taken over by pro-GNA forces from rival forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar. The UN-recognised government had announced the day before that they were also in full control of the capital Tripoli and its surroundings AFP via Getty Images Libya’s messy civil war in pictures A member of security forces affiliated with the GNA's Interior Ministry points at the reported site of a mass grave in the town of Tarhuna on June 11, 2020. The United Nations mission to Libya on June 11 voiced "horror" over the reported discovery of at least eight mass graves in an area evacuated by Khalifa Haftar's forces. "UNSMIL notes with horror reports on the discovery of at least eight mass graves in past days, the majority of them in Tarhuna," the UN mission said in a statement on Twitter AFP via Getty Images


“One of the things Turkey did by officially intervening in Libya is upgrade the weaponry. It’s like they fast-forwarded Libya a new generation,” Oded Berkowitz, deputy chief intelligence officer at Max Security, told The Independent.

Ankara not only deployed a few hundred of its own forces, but sent Bayraktar TB2 drones, Korkut air defence systems and – according to western military observers – at least three Gabya-class frigates, creating a vital air defence bubble protecting Tripoli and neighbouring Misrata.

At the same time, UN investigators estimate that Ankara recruited as many as 3,000 of its Turkish-backed Syrian combatants for Libya’s frontline.

Syrian fighters in Libya, however, told The Independent that the true number was closer to 6,000, due to a surge in recruitment over the last two months.

Even the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in March did not slow the transfer of troops.

Sources on Syria’s border with Turkey told The Independent hundreds of Syrian fighters had crossed over, ready to be deployed to Tripoli this week. Although with the collapse of Haftar’s strongholds, that may not be necessary now.


On Haftar’s side, The Independent was able to confirm a surge in recruitment of pro-regime Syrian mercenaries up until at least mid-May.

Down in the southern desert of Murzuq, along the main smuggling routes from Libya’s porous border desert with Sudan, Libyan residents told The Independent Sudanese fighters in pick-up trucks were tearing their way through the desert to the front lines.

“There is regular movement since the borders are basically open. We have one car, or two, each week crossing the borders,” said one man called Mohamed.

A long way from home

Sitting hunched over his phone amid the pock-marked moonscapes of the Tripoli frontline, Abu Ahmed admitted Turkey’s Syrian mercenaries are miserable.

“Some are so desperate to go home, they shot themselves in the legs so they can get airlifted out,” the battle ravaged ex-rebel said.

Some are so desperate to go home, they shot themselves in the legs so they can get airlifted out Syrian mercenary in Libya

Like most of the Syrians he knows, the 27-year-old says he only agreed to fight in Libya because he assumed it was easy to catch a migrant boat to Europe. “It turns out it’s not,” he added bitterly. “All of the Syrians here for a long time advise: don’t trust anyone and just try to get home.”


After years fighting with rebel factions against Syrian regime forces, Abu Ahmed joined the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army last year as it spearheaded Ankara’s incursion into Kurdish-held northern Syria.

He was first deployed to Tripoli on the GNA side in February 2020. Over the last month of messaging The Independent his mood has gone from bad to worse.

He described how the Syrians’ unruly behaviour – including looting, and stealing weapons – has angered several Libyan brigades, worried about the optics of foreigners fighting their battles. He recalled how one Syrian friend captured a Syrian on the rival side, painting a poignant vignette of the pointlessness of it all.

“Here in Libya they treat us like if we were a sack of money. The Libyans hate us and don’t trust us at all. We just want to go home,” he continued.

Abu Ahmed’s story echoes thousands of other Syrians caught up in the region’s proxy wars. He was just 17 and working in his parent’s shop when the Syria civil war broke out in 2011. He never finished secondary school and so nine years later, to survive, he fights for whoever will pay the most.


That ended up being the GNA, which, with Turkish support, was promising $2,000 a month for four months: a considerable pay rise from his monthly salary of 500 Turkish lira ($70) fighting Turkey’s offensives in northern Syria.

In fact Ankara entrusted top commanders of the Turkish-backed Syrian brigades with their recruitment drive. According to multiple fighters in Libya and civilians in northwest Syria the likes of Fehim Isa, who leads Sultan Murad brigade and “Abu Amsha”, from Suleiman Shah, have done lucrative stints in Libya with their men.

A GNA fighter fires a heavy machine gun at rival forces south of the captial (AFP/Getty) (AFP via Getty Images)

The journey from northeast Syria to Tripoli takes roughly one week. Abu Ahmed described crossing the Hawar Kilis border point, boarding military aircraft from the southern Turkish town of Gaziantep to Istanbul and then flying commercial onwards to west Libya.

Another GNA fighter, who was among the first dispatched in January and is back in Syria, told The Independent the Syrians he was fighting alongside were quickly disillusioned. Even the money promised was not that good.