Kiev retaliated against Moscow, but also against Tehran, hurting their vital interests in the Middle East. As David Ignatius points out in the Washington Post, the Syrian rebels who came to power in Damascus last weekend had received drones, and more, from Ukrainian intelligence agents trying to undermine Russia and its Syrian allies, according to sources familiar with the matter. Ukrainian military activities abroad. At the same time, Iran was also affected, which in turn had supported Russia, sending drones and other equipment against the Ukrainians.

Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 experienced drone operators and about 150 FPV (first-person view) drones to the rebel headquarters in Idlib, Syria, four to five weeks ago to help the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main rebel group based there, informed sources said.

Ukraine’s covert aid program in Syria was an open secret

Aid from Kiev did not play a leading role in toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Western intelligence sources believe. But it was notable, as part of a broader Ukrainian effort to covertly strike at Russian operations in the Middle East, Africa and inside Russia itself.

Ukraine’s covert aid program in Syria was … an open secret, although senior Biden administration officials said he repeatedly said they didn’t know about it. Ukraine’s motivation is obvious: faced with a Russian attack inside its country, Ukrainian intelligence has looked for other fronts where it can “bloody the nose” of Russia and undermine its clients.

Not that the Ukrainians hadn’t advertised their intentions. The Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post in a June 3 article quoted a source in the Ukrainian military intelligence service, known as GUR, who told the newspaper that “since the beginning of the year, the [Σύροι] rebels, supported by Ukrainian agents, have carried out several strikes on Russian military installations represented in the region.”

That story, posted online, included a link to videos showing attacks on a bunker, a white van and other targets that GUR said had been hit by Ukrainian-backed rebels inside Syria. The newspaper said the operation in Syria was carried out by a special unit known as “Khimik” within the GUR bays, “in cooperation with the Syrian opposition”.

Russian officials have been complaining for months about the Ukrainian paramilitary operation in Syria. Alexander Lavrentiev, Russia’s special representative for Syria, said in a November interview with TASS: “We do have information that Ukrainian specialists from the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine are on the territory of Idlib.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a similar claim in September about “envoys of Ukrainian intelligence” in Idlib. He claimed they were conducting “dirty operations,” according to the Syrian newspaper Al-Watan, which claimed that Lt. Gen. Kirill Butanov, head of the GUR, had personal contact with HTS.

Before the HTS offensive toppled Assad, Russian officials had argued that Ukraine’s association with the rebel group was an effort to recruit Syrian fighters for its war against the Kremlin. A September report on an online site called Cradle claimed that Ukraine had offered 75 unmanned aerial vehicles in a “drones-for-fighters” deal with HTS. But there is no independent evidence to support this Russian claim.

Moscow was clearly surprised by HTS’s rapid advance on Damascus — but interestingly, Russian sources sought to minimize the Ukrainian role. A December 2 Middle East Eye article quoted a Russian Telegram account said to reflect the views of the Russian military, which rejected Kiev’s help:

“First, GUR members visited Idlib, but they stayed there only for a while — insufficient time to train the Syrians in basic UAV handling.’ “Second,” the message continued, “HTS has long had its own UAV program.”

Andriy Yussoff, GUR’s representative, emphasized the operation in Mali

The operation in Syria is not the only incident of Ukrainian military intelligence operating abroad to harass Russian agents. The BBC reported in August that Ukraine helped rebels in northern Mali ambush Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group. The July 27 attack killed 84 Wagner operatives and 47 Malian nationals, the BBC reported.

Andrei Yusov, a GUR spokesman, highlighted the operation in Mali several days later, saying that the Malian rebels “received the necessary information, and not just information, that enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals,” according to BBC. After the attack, Mali severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine.

Budanov pledged in April 2023 that Ukraine would prosecute Russians guilty of war crimes “anywhere in the world,” according to reports. Budanov’s aggressive intelligence operations have at times worried the Biden administration, US officials said.

When Ignatius asked Budanov at his headquarters in Kiev last April about GUR’s reported operations against Wagner in Africa, the GUR chief noted that “we conduct such operations with the aim of reducing Russian military potential wherever possible.” . “Why should Africa be an exception?” he wondered.

Like Ukraine’s incursions into Africa and its attack on the Kursk region inside Russia, the covert operation in Syria reflects an effort to widen the battlefield — and hurt the Russians in areas where they are unprepared. Ukraine’s aid was not “the drone that delivered the final blow.” But it helped, at least to a small extent, in the downfall of Russia’s most important client in the Middle East.

And just as Israel failed to anticipate the wave of Hamas across the Gaza fence on October 7, 2023, Russia saw the Ukrainian-backed rebels coming but was unable to mobilize to stop the onslaught and prevent the devastating consequences .