Who Are the Leaders of the Syrian Militias Supporting Russia in the Ukraine War?

European sanctions against Syrian local militias and leaders and officers from the Bashar al-Assad regime officially revealed the latter's involvement in Russia's war against Ukraine since the second month of the war started on February 24, 2022.

The European Union, in two separate decisions published in its Official Gazette on July 21, 2022, included ten Syrian figures, most of whom are military personnel affiliated with the regime's forces and local militias, on the blacklist of European sanctions, in addition to two companies that recruit mercenaries from Syria to Ukraine.

The European Union stated that these people were involved in the recruitment of Syrian and Palestinian mercenaries to fight in Ukraine, undermining and threatening its territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin opening the door for volunteers to fight alongside his country's forces against Ukraine, the regime pulled out a group of its forces, declaring its readiness to send it to fight with the Russian army.

There were also mercenary recruitment operations for Russia, which Assad-affiliated officers supervised in the provinces, especially the villages of the Syrian coast, which constitute the human reservoir for the regime's fighters.

The brigadier general in the ranks of the regime forces, Suhail al-Hassan, nicknamed "The Tiger," Russia's first man in Syria, participated with Russian officers in training over a hundred soldiers to parachute jump in the Syrian desert in June 2022.

 

Recruiting Companies

The European sanctions affected the companies Sanad Guards and Security Services and al-Sayyad for Guarding and Protection Services, and Muhammad Issam Shammout, a prominent businessman close to the Assad regime, owner and chairman of the board of directors of Cham Wings Airlines.

Sanad Company is responsible for protecting Russian phosphate shipments from central Syria to the port of Tartus and was founded in 2017 by Ahmed Khalil and Nasser Deeb.

Sanad was supervised from the beginning by the Russian Wagner Group and played a significant role in protecting Russian interests, even recruiting Syrian mercenaries to fight in Libya previously, and it has recently engaged in recruitment operations in Ukraine.

The al-Sayyad company was established in March 2017 and is headquartered in the city of al-Suqaylabiyah in the Hama countryside. Its initial aim was to recruit Syrian mercenaries to Libya through direct support from the Military Security Branch.

It was also supervised by Wagner, and it is active in protecting Russian interests (phosphates, gas, and securing oil sites). The European Union included the director of the al-Sayyad company, Fawaz Mikhail Gerges, and his partner, Yasar Hussein Ibrahim, among the sanctions lists.

Yasar Ibrahim currently holds the status of assistant president of the regime. Before 2011, he was not widely known in Syria except that he was a director and co-founder in each of the companies al-Burj for Investment, Ziyarah for Tourism, al-Markazia for the Cement Industry, and many more.

Currently, he is the man who runs the one-room "war economy" after Bashar al-Assad overthrew the director of his financial system and his cousin Rami Makhlouf in 2020.

Syrian opposition websites confirm that Yasar belongs to the Alawite sect and that his father, Hussein, worked as an advisor to former regime president Hafez al-Assad.

Gerges is a forty-year-old Christian businessman who constantly moves between Syria and Russia, and he was awarded a medal by Putin in 2018 for the services he is providing.

Gerges is responsible for the formation of the ISIS Hunters group, which emerged in a large way in late 2017, and fought against the Islamic State organization in the Syrian desert near the oil and gas fields supervised by Russia.

Al-Sayyad used to give the recruits who wanted to go to fight in Libya $1,000 as a monthly salary in return for guarding the oil installations, from which $200 would be deducted as security deposits.

In case the recruits participated in killing on the first lines, the salary will be $1,500 per month, which is a considerable number compared to the pay of a government employee in Syria, which does not exceed $25 per month.

As for the prominent businessman Muhammad Essam Shammout, he is the director and founding partner of the private Cham Wings Airline, which launched its first flights in 2007.

Syrian opposition websites confirm that Cham Wings contributed to the transfer of Syrian mercenaries and fighters of the Russian private Wagner Group from the Hmeimim airfield in the countryside of Latakia to fight in Libya alongside Khalifa Haftar's militia, accused of committing war crimes against the Libyans.

It is likely that Cham Wings contributed to the transfer of Syrian mercenaries to Russia through its regular flights to Belarus.

 

Syrian and Palestinian Brigadiers

The sanctions included the brigadier general in al-Assad's forces, Saleh al-Abdullah, who is the commander of the 16th Brigade formed by Russia in 2020 and was previously a deputy to Suhail al-Hassan in the 25th Special Tasks Division, which is the most used of advanced Russian weapons in battles, as well as direct support and backing Russian experts and officers.

Al-Abdullah, born in 1967, is from Taiba, Safita, in Tartus Governorate, and he has participated in recruiting brigade members to fight with Russian forces in Ukraine.

Al-Abdullah has been implicated in war crimes in Syria since he was the head of the security and military committee in Mhardeh in 2012, who suppressed the revolution at the time in the Hama countryside and was the second responsible for committing massacres in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib during military operations against villages and towns there.

European sanctions also affected Brigadier General Akram Muhammad al-Salti, the Palestine Liberation Army's commander-in-chief, who is recruiting Palestinians to fight in Ukraine alongside Russia.

Information became available in March 2022, when the Palestine Liberation Army began registering young men wishing to join the Palestinian camps in Syria through two affiliation centers, the first in Jaramana camp in Damascus countryside and the second in Neirab Camp in Aleppo.

And the Palestine Liberation Army, which was established in 1964, officially joined in 2015 to fight with Assad's forces against the opposition forces, with 60,000 fighters.

Al-Salti, in addition to his work as an officer, works in the field of real estate trade in Syria and owns the Salti Limited Liability commercial company, which he established in 2017.

The company works in the field of service and import business, in addition to representing Arab and foreign companies and agencies.

 

Christian Militias

The European sanctions affected the leaders of the National Defense Militia in the city of al-Suqaylabiyah in the western Hama countryside, Nabel al-Abdullah, and Simon al-Wakeel in the city of Mhardeh in the same countryside.

The two cities of Suqaylabiyah and Maharda are Christian-majority, and militias, formed there to fight alongside Assad's forces before moving to the Russian side and becoming militarily supported by the Hmeimim Air Base in Latakia, which is affiliated with the Russian Aerospace Forces.

On March 7, 2022, al-Abdullah and al-Wakeel announced their willingness to send operatives to fight in Ukraine.

At the time, al-Abdullah came out with a video recording on March 13, 2022, in which he confirmed that his elements were ready to fight in Ukraine, but they were waiting for what he called "Russian directives."

He added: "We are in Syria and are still waiting for instructions from Russia, we are ready for war in Ukraine, we have experience in street fighting, we are ready to abolish unipolarity and to register names among those who will make new history."

Russia supports Christian militias in Syria. On February 9, 2021, it awarded the Order of Fidelity to Russia of the second degree to Nabel al-Abdullah and Simon al-Wakeel.

This is not the first time that Hmeimim base officers have honored al-Abdullah, as he was awarded in February 2018 the Courage and Valor in Fighting Terrorism in Syria medal. Russia also linked these Christian militias to its forces.

Since the beginning of the Russian war on Ukraine, many Syrian militia leaders have worked hard to promote and encourage recruitment to fight alongside the Russian army.

According to the opposition Deir ezZor 24 network, the commander-in-chief of the al-Quds Brigade militia, Mohammed al-Saeed, conducted an inspection visit to his elements on the regional borders with Iraq in March 2022.

The network stated that the leaders of the al-Quds Brigades agreed to send forces to join the Russian Wagner militia's ranks and fight alongside the Russian forces in Ukraine.

The Syrian regime was the first to form a Palestinian faction under the name Liwa al-Quds as a militia fighting alongside it in early 2013 by recruiting Palestinians from the camps in Aleppo and luring them with money.

The network estimates that the number of Syrian mercenaries volunteering to fight in Ukraine since the beginning of recruitment in March 2022 has exceeded 3,000 from various Syrian governorates.