February 10, 2018
[Editor’s note:
This story was updated on February 12, 2018 with additional information about
the origin of the audio and identities of some of the men reported killed; on
February 13, 2018 to include a video released by U.S. Central Command; and
on February 14, 2018 to include information about the circumstances of the
attack.]
As many as 215
Russian citizens may have been killed earlier this week by the Coalition and
Syrian Democratic Forces in Deir Ezzor, according to information shared on
Russian social media.
The U.S.-led
Coalition against Islamic State said on Thursday that it responded to an
“unprovoked attack” on a well-established SDF headquarters by forces aligned
with the Syrian regime.
Military
officials said Coalition aircraft including F-22A Raptors, MQ-9B
Reapers, F-15E Strike Eagles, AC-130 gunships, U.S. Army Apache
helicopters and U.S. Marine artillery ground forces engaged the pro-regime
fighters.
A February 10 post on Russian social
networking service VKontakte says 253 Russians were sent into a fight near Deir
Ezzor, and 196 of them died in the attack. The force consisted of Russian
Special Operations Forces alongside Russians employed by private military
contractor PMC Wagner, equipped with artillery and tanks.
The Coalition and
SDF attack lasted for four hours. The engagement began with artillery strikes,
followed by Lockheed AC-130 Spectre and helicopter attacks.
“The wounded are
already in Russia, most of them in serious condition. The injuries are
terrible. Many have horribly mutilated faces and head injuries. Almost all have
either lost their limbs or have them terribly wounded. We are not going to
guess how many of them will stay alive, hoping for the best,” the post reads,
noting that it is impossible to identify those who have been killed.
Audio recordings
detail Russian casualties
Audio recordings
of phone calls made by unidentified men have circulated on WhatsApp. The calls
purport to describe the circumstances of the attack.
“I just called
the guys. They formed a column and they didn’t make it to the position … some
300-700 meters to the position. One platoon went ahead, but the column wasn’t
moving,” a man says, using a lot of expletives. “Those [forces] raised the
American flag, and the artillery started hitting them hard, and then choppers
arrived…”
According to the
man, the SDF then began firing artillery at the column, and 200-215 people died
in the assault.
“Look, 177 killed
– that is just the Fifth Company. The Second remained basically intact. The
Fifth one was all destroyed,” a different man says in a separate recording.
“The guys had no chances.”
He blamed the
attack on “the Kurds and the Americans.”
Mark Feygin, a
Russian lawyer and politician who served as a deputy of the State Duma in
1994-1995, seemed to corroborate the account. Feygin tweeted on Saturday that,
according to an individual in touch with PMC Wagner, the number of contractors
who died east of the Euphrates river has reached 215.
However, Roman
Saponkov, a Russian reporter in Syria, said that PMC Wagner lost 20-25
fighters, and questioned the veracity of information shared about the incident.
The Russian
Ministry of Defence has not mentioned any Russian casualties in its statements.
“A pro-government
militia unit, conducting surveillance and research activities near the al-Isba
oil refinery (17 kilometers southeast of the Salhiyah settlement) to eliminate
a militant group shelling the positions of government troops, was shelled with
mortars and multiple-launch rocket systems,” the defense ministry said.
“The attack was
followed by an air raid by the U.S.-led Coalition’s helicopters. As a result,
25 Syrian militiamen suffered wounds,” it added.
Update February
12:
The audio
recordings of phone calls were originally posted on the Telegram channel
WarGonzo. The channel is run by former Life News war correspondent Semyon Pegov.
Another Russian
military correspondent, Aleksandr Kots, who is with Komsomolskaya Pravda, wrote
on his Telegram account Kotsnews that he had received the recordings from his
own sources on Friday.
There were many
theories of where the recordings have originated, ranging from “this can be a
provocation by ISIS” to “it’s all made up by Ukrainians.”
The latter
version was “supported” by the fact that Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, a Russian army
veteran who played key roles in the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern
Ukraine, wrote multiple posts about the incident on
his VKontakte page. Strelkov said there were hundreds of people injured and
killed in the attack, with up to 644 people dead, according to some sources he
himself doubted.
“I’m 100 percent
sure in the defeat of the PMC,” he later wrote, noting that he received the
information from “several channels” in Syria.
After publishing
the recordings, Pegov wrote that the floodgate was opened and his military
sources began sending him more information.
“Artillery was
unable to help the destroyed Wagner column not without reason – it was attacked
by the U.S. drones almost immediately and disabled. The guys had almost no
chances, after artillery fire the remnants of the column were hit from
helicopters,” he wrote quoting anonymous participants in the fight.
On Monday,
Conflict Intelligence Team released four names of people who died in the Deir
Ezzor attack: Alexey Ladygin from the Russian city of Ryazan, Stanislav Matveev
and Igor Kosoturov from Asbest, and Vladimir Loginov, born in Khabarovsk.
The Baltic
Cossack Union announced Loginov’s death on their website on Monday. The
organization has a 25-year history and has been celebrated by Russian
authorities.
Kirill Ananyev, a
member of the unregistered Other Russia party, has become the fifth person
known to have died near Deir Ezzor. Information on his death was
published on Monday on the party’s VKontakte page.
Update February
13:
U.S. Central
Command on Tuesday released a video of one of the strikes.
The video is
captioned: “Syrian Democratic forces acted in self-defense with support from
the Coalition to defeat an unprovoked Syrian pro-regime forces attack in
eastern Syria late Feb. 7 and early Feb. 8, 2018.”
Update February
14:
Another member of
the unregistered Other Russia party has disappeared in Syria, party chairman
Eduard Limonov wrote on his LiveJournal page on Wednesday.
“One more of our
National Bolsheviks disappeared in Syria, cannot get in touch [with him]. We
hope he will be found,” Limonov wrote, adding that the death of Russian
citizens in Syria was the result of a “betrayal.”
“It was not only
PMC Wagner that was there, there were people from four PMCs, but the names [of
the PMCs] will not add anything to your understanding [of the situation]. There
were about two Companies there. They were really heading toward an oil field. But they were betrayed,” he added.
Limonov said all
the people were experienced fighters who had participated in wars,
“professionals,” and noted that it was still hard to say how many people
actually died.
“Russian
authorities did not send them there. In this case, Russian authorities bear
irreparable damage to their reputation. That’s why they went far into defense.
Our Ministry of Defense did not send them under fire either. They were betrayed
by one of their own,” he argued.
Meanwhile, a
source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS on Wednesday that the
reports of mass casualties were not true.
“Reports on
hundreds, dozens fatalities in Syria disseminated by some Western media outlets
are classic misinformation,” the source said.
The Russian
Foreign Ministry told Kommersant, however, that it is probing the incident.
“We are now
checking the information on the victims, including CIS citizens. If the information
is confirmed, we will surely publish it,” the ministry said.
According to the
outlet’s source in the Russian military, the incident took place because local
“big businessmen currently supporting Bashar Assad” attempted to seize oil and
gas fields controlled by the Kurds.
Anna Varfolomeeva
