Members of a terrorist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham are allegedly receiving combat training under the joint collaboration between Ukraine and the United States, Russia claims.
“Vladimir Zelensky’s regime, in coordination with the Americans, is training terrorists from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Syria, using new UAV production technologies for combat operations against Russian forces in the republic,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
Lavrov wrote an article, published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, saying, the Western coalition continues to carry out strikes in Syria, “effectively encouraging the Kiev regime to engage in similar terrorist activities in Russian regions, where civilians and civilian infrastructure are targeted with direct support from the West.”
On September 14, the Turkish newspaper Aydinlik claimed to have footage of meetings in Syria between Ukrainians and members of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, an organization banned in Russia.
The newspaper published a photo showing two individuals — one wearing a T-shirt with a trident emblem on the sleeve, and the other dressed in a gray-blue military uniform.
The report stated that the images were taken in Idlib and dated back to June of this year.
On September 12, Lavrov said at a roundtable meeting with the heads of diplomatic missions on the Ukrainian issue that Ukrainian intelligence emissaries were actively recruiting Islamist militants in Syria and Africa to carry out terrorist operations.
He drew attention to the fact that Ukrainian special services had involved radical Islamists in the preparation and implementation of the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is a coalition of northern Syria-based Sunni Islamist insurgent groups that evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or “Nusrah Front,” al-Qa’ida’s former branch in Syria.
Since 2012, HTS and its predecessors have had an operational presence in several Syrian provinces, significantly in Aleppo, Hama, Lattakia, and Idleb.
While at its zenith, in January 2017, HTS exerted territorial control over swaths of territory in northwest Syria; a sequence of Russian-backed offensives by the regime has since reduced HTS’s territorial reach.
Currently, HTS controls what is considered to be the last stronghold of rebel factions in northwest Syria, which includes parts of Idleb, Aleppo, and the countryside of Hama, in addition to a small stretch in the northern countryside of Lattakia.
It engages in a variety of activities, including armed clashes and shelling against regime forces along the frontlines, as well as acts of violence on civilians in areas under its control.
