Russia Accuses Ukraine Of Supporting AQ-Linked Fighters In Syria, & There Is Some Evidence

While the issue of potential Ukrainian government support to Syria’s Al Qaeda spin-off Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has remained subject of intense speculation and rumor, Moscow has made the allegation official.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia issued a statement accusing Ukraine of stoking the armed insurgency which seeks to take over Syrian territory and threaten Assad. “Ukrainian military instructors from the GUR are present… training HTS fighters for combat operations,” Nebenzia said at the UN on Tuesday.

He went on to assert that HTS has “not only not concealed the fact that they are supported by Ukraine, but they are also openly flaunting this.” Reports and images of Ukrainian equipment and drones in the hands of the jihadists during the capture of Aleppo have persisted for days.

Nebenzia also turned his criticisms against UN officials for being “unable to summon the courage to call a spade a spade and to condemn these terrorist attacks” against Syria.

A surprise report on December 1st in the staunchly pro-Ukraine Kyiv Post suggested this is all part of Ukrainian intelligence efforts to hit out at Russian targets outside the immediate theatre of the Ukraine war:

According to reports on some Islamist social media sites, the rebel groups based in the Idlib region – which is said to include members of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) – had received operational training from special forces troops from the Khimik group of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR). The training team focused on tactics developed during the war in Ukraine, including on the use of drones.

HUR’s Khimik group was credited with the attack on a Russian military base on the southeastern outskirts of Aleppo on Sept. 15, in which Russian attack drones and “camouflaged improvised explosive devices,” were destroyed according to a Kyiv Post military intelligence source.

That’s when the Kyiv Post report, with the title Ukrainian Trained, Turkish Sponsored Syrian Rebels Lead Assault on Aleppo, detailed the following:

It has been suggested that these Ukrainian special forces advisors are providing support to the current opposition attacks but there has been no independent verification of any such involvement.

The suggestion of Ukrainian involvement could be seen as part of a broader trend of Kyiv’s forces targeting Russian forces abroad, including alleged direct support for an Islamist militia attack on Russian Wagner Group mercenaries and government forces on July 26 in Mali. 

Indeed reports of potential Ukrainian assistance to the jihadists based in Idlib have focused on drone usage, and additional damning evidence has appeared of late in the NY Times, such as in the following…

State Department Syria regime change asset Mouaz Moustafa just told the NY Times he had advance notice of the Al Qaeda/HTS assault on Aleppo, and that it was coordinated with Ukraine’s post-Maidan regime https://t.co/6Qz8Rf3TTw pic.twitter.com/EOBrxMf0Zp

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 4, 2024

Mouaz Moustafa is founder and head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), which has long worked closely with US Congress and Western governments to arm anti-Assad fighters since the beginning of the war after 2011.

As for the above mentioned Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), it is among the most brutal terror groups which has long cooperated and associated with ISIS, or whichever Islamist faction happens to hold dominance in the region.

It has long sought to also create an Islamic state in China’s Xinjiang province, and its fighters have poured into northern Syria over the years. If the Kyiv Post reporting is accurate, and Ukraine’s intelligence directorate trained TIP militants, China would no doubt be intensely interested, and outraged.