As Wagner’s mercenaries advanced toward Moscow during the attempted uprising in late June, Syrian authorities and Russian military commanders moved swiftly against Wagner’s local forces to prevent the insurgency from spreading, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Those previously unknown countermeasures included blocking phone lines, summoning 12 of Wagner’s commanders to a Russian military base and calling on the mercenary fighters to sign new contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry or leave Syria quickly, news.ro said.

Reuters sources who disclosed the information include Syrian security officials, sources close to deployed Russian forces and regional officials. The sources asked to remain anonymous, while the Syrian government, the Russian Defense Ministry and Wagner’s Russian company did not respond to the agency’s requests for comment.

The moves suggest the Syrian government has moved quickly to build up its mercenary force, worried that its key military partner, Russia, is being distracted by events at home, according to two Syrian sources familiar with the matter.

“Wagner’s role in Siris is finished”

“Wagner’s role in Syria — the way he used to play it — is over,” said Navar Shaban, a researcher at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, an Istanbul-based independent think tank that focuses on Syria. relations with the Ministry of Defense of Syria are over,” the expert says.

Damascus has not publicly commented on the June 23-24 Wagner mutiny, when mercenary commander Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered his men fighting for Russia in Ukraine to go to Moscow before being allowed to return, under a deal brokered by Belarus, and let many of them will be forgotten. exiled.

However, senior Syrian military and intelligence officials have privately expressed concern as they watch developments that the uprising could disrupt the Russian military presence they have long relied on, according to a senior Guards officer. Syrian Republicans and a Syrian source reported the development.

Putin helped Bashar Assad

The mercenary group’s presence in Syria is relatively small, between 250 and 450 people, or about one-tenth of the estimated Russian military force, two Syrian sources said. There is no official data on the numbers, they change over time.

In 2015, Russia deployed its military forces, especially its air force, to Syria, helping President Bashar al-Assad push back rebels seeking to oust him from power.

Since then, “Wagnera” has been participating in combat missions and ensuring the safety of oil facilities in Syria, and the first deaths of suspected “Wagnera” fighters there were reported back in 2015.

For years, Moscow has denied any connection to Wagner, but the group has played a public role in Russia’s war in Ukraine. After the uprising, President Vladimir Putin admitted that his government had financed Prigozhin’s group.

A group of Russian soldiers was promptly dispatched to Syria

According to a regional military source close to Damascus and two Syrian sources familiar with the situation, after Prigozhin announced the uprising, a group of Russian troops was quickly dispatched to Syria to help take on Wagner’s forces there, but they did not provide more. details

In the night from Friday, June 23, to Saturday, the intelligence services of the Syrian army cut off landline telephone and Internet connections in the areas of deployment of the “Wagner” PMK in order to prevent the mercenaries from communicating with each other and with the PMK headquarters. Wagner from Russia and even with relatives at home, three sources said.

On the morning of Saturday, June 24, Syrian military intelligence and Russian defense officials were closely coordinating efforts to isolate and control Wagner agents.

Twelve of Wagner’s officers, stationed in Syria’s central Homs province and elsewhere, were called to the Russian operational base in Khmeimim, in the western province of Latakia, from “the first hours of the uprising”, sources told Reuters.

The press agency notes that it could not determine what happened to them.

A contract or a plane home

On June 24, Wagner’s fighters in Syria were offered to sign new contracts reporting directly to the Ministry of Defense of Russia. Three sources told Reuters they also took pay cuts.

Those who refused the new terms were evacuated by Russian planes to Ilyusin in the following days, two of the sources said. One of them said that Wagner’s fighters had been sent home by the “dozens,” surprising Syrian officials who had expected that there would be more who refused and preferred to stay.

Between June 25 and 27, Flightradar24 flight tracking data shows at least three movements of the Russian Ilyushin jet between Latakia, Syria, and Bamako, the capital of the West African state of Mali, where Wagner also operates. Reuters was unable to determine whether Wagner, who had been deployed from Syria to Mali, was personally on board those flights.

Malian authorities did not respond to a request for comment on the flights.

What is Wagner’s role in Syria?

According to Syrian analysts and a retired Syrian military officer familiar with Wagner’s activities, Wagner has already recalled many experienced Russian fighters from Syria to fight in Ukraine last year.

Wagner’s fighters have taken control of Syrian oil fields, and Western officials say Wagner is linked to Evro Polis, a company that profits from those assets. The EU imposed sanctions on the company in 2021.

Reuters was unable to determine the fate of those business interests following the actions of the Russian Defense Ministry against Wagner in Syria and Russia. Euro Polis did not immediately respond to emails sent to the contact address listed on its website.

The Khmeimimim base served as a logistics center for the transit of Wagner PKK fighters to Libya and other parts of Africa, according to a Syrian security source and a Western diplomat stationed in the region. “We are watching how these Wagner operations will be thwarted in turn,” the diplomat said.

“We will not hesitate to support them in the war”

Unlike other operations in Africa, where the Wagner is larger and not subordinate to the Russian military, its role in the war in Syria was initially less important, as Russian aircraft changed the course of the conflict.

Details of its presence have gradually emerged, including in 2018, when hundreds of fighters of the “Wagner” PMK were killed in a clash with US forces near the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, sources told Reuters at the time.

After the Wagner uprising, Syria’s leadership quickly publicly reaffirmed the importance of its military alliance with Russia. Syria’s First Lady Asmaa al-Assad was in Russia in a few days to attend her son’s graduation from Moscow State University and was asked by a reporter if she was afraid to visit the country in light of recent events.

“Our Russian friends did not hesitate when they were with us in our war. So we did not hesitate and will not hesitate to support them in their war,” she replied.

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