The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine believes is likely that Russia is employing “Kurdish mercenaries” to fly kamikaze drones against Ukrainian targets.
State news outlet Ukrinform reports that Russian forces are “likely recruiting Kurdish mercenaries to organise drone attacks on targets in Ukraine,” citing a post shared to Facebook by the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
The intelligence agency shared audio described as an “interception of the [Russian] occupiers’ conversation[s]” during a “mass attack on Ukrainian territory by kamikaze drones” on Friday.
The speakers in the clip are said to “communicate in a dialect of the Kurdish language interspersed with words in Farsi” — Farsi, otherwise known as Persian, being the predominant language in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan — and suggests that “the command of the occupying forces involves not only Iranian instructors who teach Russians how to use drones in attacks on the territory of Ukraine” but also “Kurdish mercenaries who have combat experience” using Iranian drones.
The Ukrainians began claiming as long ago as October that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has personnel in Russian-occupied territory instructing Russian forces on how to use Iranian-made Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones, and even operating themselves.
Iran’s Islamic Guards Training Russian Drone Crews in Ukraine: Report https://t.co/fpyNbLXzPI
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 16, 2022
The Ukrainians noted that “Russian troops have already engaged armed units consisting of Kurdish and Afghan mercenaries” in Syria, where they are supporting the Western-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Reports of Russia attempting to recruit Syrians for the Ukrainian war effort date back almost to the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, though there is little indication that the supposedly tens of thousands who registered to join the fight ever arrived in appreciable numbers.
More recently, the Associated Press has reported on Russian efforts to recruit former Afghan special forces trained by the United States and other Western powers, displaced from their home country following U.S. President Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal, with former general Abdul Raof Arghandiwal claiming recruitment efforts are being led by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group.
Wave of Drones Causes Further Damage to Ukrainian Energy Infrastructure https://t.co/mPAl3mItrR
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 2, 2023