Wagner Group activities in Syria

• 1. Wagner Group in Syria

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  The Wagner Group first appeared in Syria in late October 2015. A rebel mortar attack in Latakia province had killed between three and nine of its contractors. Russia's Defense Ministry dismissed early reports as an "information attack." Sources within the FSB and the Defense Ministry told Russian media, however, that the Wagner Group was supervised by the GRU, Russian military intelligence. Private military companies were illegal under Russian law. Yet Wagner was reportedly employed by the Russian Defense Ministry itself. Who authorized these men, who financed their operations, and who bore responsibility when things went wrong were questions the next eight years would test.

• 2. Money and Mandate

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  By July 2017, the Kremlin had established a policy in Syria that tied battlefield success to profit. Companies seizing oil and gas wells, or mines, from ISIL would receive production rights at those same sites. One company employing Wagner stood to collect 25 percent of the proceeds from any oil and gas fields its contractors captured. Some reports held that this arrangement emerged after Wagner lost the Russian Defense Ministry's financing in early 2016. The cost to Russia had already reached 170 million dollars by August 2016, according to a Defense Ministry source.

  The Syrian Cham Wings airline made 51 round trips from Rostov-on-Don Airport to Syria between January 2017 and March 2018, carrying contractors for deployment. Others flew in on Russian military transport planes. Equipment was supplied through the Syrian Express, a fleet of Russian military and civilian ships that had been delivering supplies to Syria since 2012. A Defense Ministry source also told RBK TV that the FSB was directly involved in directing the PMCs.

  By early August 2017, the number of Wagner employees in Syria had reached 5,000. This followed the arrival of an additional 2,000 contractors, among them fighters from Chechnya and Ingushetia. The first test of that financial arrangement would come at Palmyra. Before the offensive began, the PMCs were issued T-72 tanks, BM-21 Grad rocket launchers, and 122-millimeter D-30 howitzers.

• 3. Palmyra and the Gas Fields

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  Wagner PMCs served in both Palmyra offensives, in 2016 and 2017, as frontline advisors, fire and movement coordinators, and forward air controllers. One contractor described the PMCs as being used as "cannon fodder," saying most of the work was done by them. He called the regular Syrian Army soldiers "chickens," saying they only finished the job. Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security at the IIR, offered a different assessment. He called them "shock troops" serving alongside the Syrian Army.

  The first Palmyra offensive ended with 32 contractors reportedly killed and around 80 wounded. Between April and May 2016, the PMCs withdrew, surrendering all their heavy weapons and equipment.

  When they returned at the start of 2017 for the second Palmyra offensive, the equipment situation had deteriorated. The contractors were issued only older assault rifles, machine guns, T-62 tanks, and M-30 howitzers. Sniper rifles and grenade launchers arrived weeks later, but the underlying problem remained.

  Between 40 and 60 contractors were killed in the second battle, and between 80 and 180 were wounded. Poorer equipment and a reported decline in personnel quality were major factors. The Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian investigative blogger group, attributed the greater losses mainly to ISIL's heavy use of suicide bombers. The militants showed no willingness to negotiate.

  Wagner also trained a Syrian Army unit called the ISIS Hunters, which was funded and trained entirely by Russian special forces. The ISIS Hunters played a leading role in capturing the al-Shaer gas fields from ISIL in late April 2017. As of early July, Wagner contractors were still fighting to fully secure those fields and the surrounding phosphate mines. By mid-September, the al-Shaer fields were back in production. Wagner was then assigned to guard the refineries. ISIL made repeated attempts to retake the fields, each time being beaten back. During one such attack, a contractor was tortured to death by the militants.

  In early July 2017, a video emerged showing Wagner PMCs bludgeoning a man in the Palmyra area. The identity of the man in that footage would take more than two years to be established.

• 4. A Killing on Camera

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  Muhammad Abdullah al-Ismail, also known as Hamdi Bouta, came from the village of Alkhorayta in Deir ez-Zor. He had fled Syria earlier in the war and taken refuge in Lebanon, before returning in 2017. After his return, he was arrested and forcibly conscripted into the Syrian military. When he later attempted to desert, Wagner contractors accused him of being a jihadist for wanting to leave.

  More than two years after the initial video surfaced, the full footage appeared in a closed VKontakte group for Wagner members. New material in the upload identified the man as a Syrian Army deserter, not an ISIL militant. After he was killed, his body was mutilated and burned. A second severed head of an unidentified person was also visible in the footage. Arab media established the murder took place at the al-Shaer oilfield near Homs.

  Russian independent media identified one perpetrator as Stanislav Yevgenyevich Dychko, a confirmed Wagner operative who had previously worked for the Russian Interior Ministry. A second was identified as a former soldier named Ruslan from Bryansk. At the time, he was employed as a "patriotic educator" in local schools. Russian media investigation in December 2019 named the remaining perpetrators: Vladimir B., Dzhakhongyr M. (nicknamed "Pamir"), Ruslan (nicknamed "Chichi"), and Vladislav Apostol. Apostol was killed in Syria in February 2018.

  The Novaya Gazeta newspaper submitted material from its investigation to the Prosecutor General of Russia and the Investigative Committee. No criminal cases were opened.

  In March 2021, human rights lawyers from three nongovernmental organizations filed a lawsuit in Moscow against six Wagner contractors. The suit was brought on behalf of al-Ismail's brother. In December 2021, the Council of the European Union sanctioned Wagner's commander, Dmitry Utkin, over the killing. A former Wagner member had stated that Utkin "personally ordered the torturing to death of the deserter as well as the filming of the act."

  Across Syria later that year, Wagner contractors were mounting new operations. Two of them would be captured by ISIL in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate before 2017 was out.

• 5. Into Deir ez-Zor

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  In mid-September 2017, Wagner contractors helped Syrian troops capture the town of Uqayribat from ISIL in Hama province. Several PMCs died during that fighting, and ISIL seized their bodies. By the month's end, two Wagner contractors were captured alive by ISIL during a counter-offensive in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate.

  The ISIS Hunters, the Syrian unit Wagner had trained, pledged one million dollars for each man's release. They also threatened to execute 100 captive militants for every captured Russian killed by the jihadists. A Russian parliamentary official claimed the two had almost certainly already been executed. He said they had refused to renounce their Christian Orthodox faith, reject Russia, and join the militant group. The Conflict Intelligence Team found no reports from the militants' own sources to support that claim.

  Between late October and early November 2017, three or four companies of Wagner contractors took part in the Battle of Deir ez-Zor. They helped clear ISIL militants from the districts of Al-Rashidiyah and Al-Ardi, as well as the Al-Bazh and Abu-Adad neighborhoods. Syrian government forces took complete control of Deir ez-Zor city on the 3rd of November.

  The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Russia was demanding the release of the two captured PMCs during negotiations with trapped ISIL militants. By the 17th of November, the last ISIL fighters on an island in the city's outskirts surrendered. The two contractors, however, were still prisoners.

  At the end of November, the Russian military was reportedly negotiating for their release. Reports placed the men on the border between Syria and Iraq. On the 4th of December, the ISIS Hunters announced they had killed the ISIL commander responsible for capturing and executing the two men. That same day, a Wagner representative contacted the parents of one of the two to inform them that both had died in captivity.

  On the 11th of December, Putin declared victory against "terrorists" at Russia's Khmeimim air base in Syria. Ruslan Pukhov of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow argued the PMCs had been a key factor in Russia's success. He noted that Russia had avoided large-scale ground deployments by using contractors in assault roles. American PMCs, by contrast, were typically confined to support functions.

  Pukhov also observed that the Russian public proved "completely indifferent" to Wagner's casualties. He noted that people believed the contractors were highly paid and "knew what they were getting into."

  In December 2017, Wagner contractors joined the Syrian Army's offensive into Idlib province, fighting mostly HTS rebel forces. By early February 2018, the PMCs had helped capture at least 25 villages in the northeastern countryside of Hama from IS. Between the 3rd and the 7th of February, the IS pocket in that part of the country was reported to have shrunk by 80 percent. The pocket was cleared on the 9th of February. Two days later, a confrontation in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate produced the most disputed casualty figures of the Syria campaign.

• 6. The American Strike

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  At approximately 10 pm on the 7th of February 2018, pro-government forces clashed with the Kurdish-led SDF in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. The SDF was backed by the U.S. military. U.S. aircraft struck the government side during the battle, killing between 45 and 100 fighters.

  A Russian newspaper reported, citing military and contractor sources, that the government forces were attempting to seize the ConocoPhillips gas field from the SDF. The field was known locally as Al Tabiyeh. Two U.S. defense officials assessed that Russian PMCs had also participated in the assault, and stated some contractors had been killed in the airstrikes.

  On the 19th of February, the Ukraine-based publication Inform Napalm alleged the battle had been planned by Sergey Kim. Kim was identified as the head of Wagner's operations department and a former Russian Marine officer.

  Social media claims in Russia put the PMC death toll at over 200, though those figures could not be confirmed. A Russian paramilitary chief cited 218 dead. A Russian military doctor and the leader of a PMC-linked Cossack organization estimated 80-100 killed and 100-200 wounded.

  The Novaya Gazeta reported 13 Russian deaths. Maxim Buga, the ataman of the Baltic separate Cossack District, said no more than 15-20 had died. Also on the 19th of February, one of Wagner's leaders, Andrei Troshev, was quoted as saying 14 "volunteers" had been killed. Three other Wagner commanders maintained the figure was no higher than 15. Russia officially confirmed five presumably Russian citizens had been killed.

  The German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that no Russians were present in either formation that advanced toward the SDF positions. A small contingent of Russian PMCs was stationed at Al Tabiyeh, it said, but they were not participating in the fighting. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated those PMCs were not killed in airstrikes but in a booby-trapped explosion at an arms depot at Al Tabiyeh.

  The Conflict Intelligence Team estimated a total of between 20 and 30 Wagner PMCs had died. Former Wagner members said the battle had an immediate effect on the organization. After Khasham, the contractors were subsequently given only guard duties at the local plants.

• 7. Damascus and The Carpathians

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  On the 18th of February 2018, the Syrian military launched an offensive against rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, east of Damascus. By the 17th of March, 82 percent of the region was under government control.

  One of the towns captured during this period was Mesraba. Rebel forces counter-attacked on the 18th of March and quickly retook most of the town from government troops. During the night of the 18th to the 19th of March, Wagner PMCs launched an operation and fully recaptured Mesraba.

  The Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria established a humanitarian corridor that allowed civilians to leave rebel-controlled areas. Wagner contractors were tasked with guarding it. According to the center, 79,702 people had left rebel-held Eastern Ghouta as of the 19th of March. By the 23rd of March, the SOHR put the combined total at 120,000, counting those who had departed and those in towns government forces had seized. The United Nations put the number of those who had left the besieged areas at 50,000. The Eastern Ghouta region fell completely to government forces on the 14th of April. This ended a rebellion near Damascus lasting close to seven years.

  Five Wagner companies were present in Syria during the Eastern Ghouta offensive, alongside a separate unit called The Carpathians. An anonymous senior Wagner commander disclosed this structure during the same period. The Carpathians was composed mainly of Ukrainian citizens and numbered around 100 fighters.

  In May, the Ukrainian Security Service announced it had identified the Carpathians' trainer as Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Demyanenko of the Russian Armed Forces. According to the SBU, the unit had been formed to conduct reconnaissance and carry out attacks inside Ukraine. Belarusians were also said to be serving among Wagner's contractors in Syria.

  As of the end of November 2018, the PMCs had stepped back from major combat operations. One company spent three months training for riot control at a base 70 kilometers from Deir ez-Zor.

• 8. The Long Presence

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  At the start of May 2019, Wagner snipers were deploying along the Idlib frontline in anticipation of a Syrian Army offensive. The ground offensive launched on the 6th of May, after a week-long aerial campaign against rebel territory, and pro-government troops captured two major towns within three days.

  By early September 2019, the PMCs were preparing for an assault on the rebel-held city of Idlib itself. They had formed into 50-man, tank-equipped units supported by Russian air forces.

  On the 15th of October 2019, Syrian government forces entered Manbij as U.S. military forces completed their withdrawal from the area. Russian military patrols began in the Manbij district shortly after. A journalist known to follow Wagner contractors was confirmed present in the area, suggesting PMC involvement in taking over an abandoned U.S. military base.

  From mid-January 2020, tensions rose in northeastern Syria as U.S. troops began blocking Russian military vehicles from using the M4 highway. Nearly half a dozen such incidents took place by the end of the month. In early February, vehicles carrying Russian contractors were also blocked on the highways.

  In April 2020, the Wagner-linked contractor Evro Polis delivered 50 ventilators, 10,000 coronavirus test kits, and 2,000 items of protective clothing to Syria.

  By the end of December 2020, ISIL attacks had intensified in eastern Syria. The PMCs reportedly withdrew from Deir ez-Zor province to Latakia.

  In late December 2021, Wagner PMCs took part in a large-scale military operation against ISIL cells in the Syrian desert.

  On the 15th of March 2023, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights placed the total at 266 Russian PMCs killed in Syria over the course of the civil war. Among those counted were contractors from Chechnya and Ingushetia, drawn into a deployment that stretched across eight years.