During the last days, reports and posts on the alleged recruitment of Kurdish fighters from Syria by the US for the sake of fighting in the Ukrainian war increasingly circulated on social media websites.
As it turned out, several Russian sources were responsible of these claims. On 30-06- 2023, the state-sponsored news agency „RIA Novosti“ published statements that claimed the US’ purported involvement in recruitment operations of SDF-affiliated fighters for the war in Ukraine. This far-fetched hypothesis came in concomitance with claims on alleged monthly payments of 2000 US-Dollars to the SDF fighters.
On Friday, the state-sponsored outlet „Sputnik“ further reaffirmed it’s previously enunciated statements by saying that the US government had brought 650 SDF fighters to Ukraine through the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan in Northern Iraq.
However, no precise sources and evidence exists for all these claims. Russian news agencies and media outlets were already harshly criticized prior to the military invasion of Ukraine and were largely identified as the main source for the dissemination of fake news. Before Twitter’s takeover by Elon Musk, this platform attempted to actively prevent the circulation of fake news and notably classified the respective Russian news agencies as „state-sponsored media“.
Thus, this kind of news is not quite rare or unique. The SDF also reacted to these news and published a short statement to the accusations. The SDF consequently considered the news to be „fabricated and apocryphal“ as well as being disseminated by „units that are known for the unreliable and doubtful sources“.
It is in indeed true that many mercenaries from different nations fight on the side of the Ukraine, however, the Russian fake news reached a new low with their claims. The fact that the SDF itself is caught up in a war was nearly completely left out in Russia’s media report. The SDF is constantly threatened by Turkish menaces and attacks on the one hand and on the other hand experiences a continuous state of emergency due to #ISIS# ’ repetitive attacks. The SDF is supported by the US ally in its fight against ISIS with the deployment of approximately 900 soldiers in the region.
The timing of the new Russian propaganda is not surprising. Shortly before this news were published, Russia, Turkey, Iran and Syria, in the course of the Astana talks, agreed on a common line rejecting the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), whose armed forces are the SDF. At the time, Russia accused the United States of supporting an “illegal project in Syria” and of enriching itself from Syrian resources. Shortly thereafter came the revolt of the Wagner mercenaries against Putin’s leadership. Now Russia is trying to distract from its own topic with abstruse claims and by portraying the US in Syria, as in Ukraine as a desperate warmonger.[1]