Russian President Putin clearing deployment of Syrian mercenaries in Ukraine
The Kremlin on Friday, March 11, said it is in favor of the deployment of Syrian fighters in Ukraine, a response, according to Moscow, to the delivery in support of Kyiv of "mercenaries" in the pay of the West. At a meeting of Russia’s security council, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said there are 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East who are ready to fight alongside Russian-backed forces in the breakaway Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said there are 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East who were ready to fight alongside Russian-backed forces in the breakaway Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. (Picture source: Mena Research Center)
The nationality of these warriors presented as volunteers owes nothing to chance: Russia has provided considerable military support to the Syrian regime since the fall of 2015, supporting its forces against those of the opposition and those of the jihadists, de facto saving the power of Bashar al-Assad who now controls most of Syria. Putin said: “If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone.”
The sending of Syrians to the Ukrainian front was proposed on Friday, March 11, by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to President Vladimir Putin, who hastened to approve during a meeting of his security council. "If you see that people want to go there voluntarily (...) and help those who live in the Donbass, then you have to meet them and help them reach the combat zone. “, said President Putin
"It is a war with a very stubborn enemy (...) who has decided to hire mercenaries against our citizens. Assassins from Syria, from a country where everything has been destroyed by the occupiers, as they tell us inflict on us," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video posted on Telegram.
The Guardian reports that Shoigu proposed that western-made antitank Javelin and anti-aircraft Stinger missiles that were captured by the Russian army in Ukraine should be handed over to Donbas forces, along with other weaponry such as portable air-defence systems and anti-tank rocket systems: “As to the delivery of arms, especially western-made ones which have fallen into the hands of the Russian army, of course I support the possibility of giving these to the military units of the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics,” Putin said. “Please do this,” he told Shoigu. The exchange was shown on Russian state television.