The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine published a list of names of Syrian mercenaries recruited by Russia for the war against Ukraine.
There are 141 persons in the list — their names, surnames and year of birth are indicated there.
According to intelligence, Syrians are recruited to fight against Ukraine through travel agencies, and training is conducted at a military base near the city of Aleppo and the Kuveyres airfield. Then they will be sent to the Khmeimim air base, from there to Russia, where they will issue Russian passports, and then they will be mobilized into the 5th Separate Guards Tank Brigade of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (military unit 46108).
On February 7, intelligence published a video with Syrian mercenaries. At that time, she reported that the footage shows mercenaries from the first batch (thousands of people), who are being "sharpened" for battles in the urban development.
- This is not the first time that Russia involves foreigners in the war with Ukraine through deception — for example, by offering work. Such cases became more frequent at the end of last year. Then Russia, in particular, took advantage of the migration crisis on the border with Finland and began to recruit to its army foreigners detained while clearing the Finnish border. In pretrial detention centers, they were handed documents in Russian, which they did not understand, allegedly with an offer to earn extra money. Fearing deportation, many of them signed the offer, after which they were sent to fight in Ukraine.
- Russia also recruited Nepali citizens for the war. According to the countryʼs government, 200 Nepalese joined the Russian army. They are involved in the war. Six Nepalese have already died, and one was captured by the Ukrainians.
- A citizen of Somalia was also captured by the Armed Forces. He directly said that he was a mercenary.