(Moscow-on-Thames) Maybe I’ve missed something, but as best I can tell most Americans – indeed, most in the West in general – aren’t aware of the fact that, two weeks ago, US troops repelled a Russian attack in Syria, killing maybe as many as several hundred people (and losing none of their own).
Here’s the contemporaneous report from CNN. If you read Russian, though, you’ll learn a lot more from Pavel Felgengauer’s article today in Novaya Gazeta. In a nutshell: On 7 Feb., a unit of pro-Assad troops including some number of Russians – most likely from the ‘Vagner’ private military co (Russia’s version of Blackwater) – moved on an oil facility near Deir ez-Zor, controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Together with the SDF, the facility was protected by Kurdish forces and some number of American (and perhaps British) ‘advisers’.
The US saw the attack force massing days before the assault and told Moscow that Assad’s friends should remain on the other side of the Euphrates. Moscow replied that there were no Russians in the group and maintained that line even when the force crossed the river. […]
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