Ukraine has held secret talks with Syrian terrorists to secure the release of imprisoned militants to be sent to the front line to fight against Russia, Turkish newspaper Aydinlik reported on Monday, citing local sources.
According to the newspaper, a Ukrainian delegation traveled to Syria’s Idlib province in June to meet with leaders of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist organization. Extreme security measures were in place during the negotiations, the paper reported.
Aydinlik claimed that Kiev wanted the HTS to free Georgian-born jihadist Tarkhan Batirashvili, also known as by his nom de guarri Omar al-Shishani, reportedly held by the group, as well as an unidentified number of Chechen and Georgian extremists. There have been numerous reports that al-Shishani was killed in Iraq in 2016, but the paper noted that he might still be alive, or that he had been confused with another terrorist of Chechen origin, Muslim al-Shishani.
In exchange, the Ukrainian delegation allegedly offered the HTS delivery of 75 drones. The HTS accepted the conditions in August, the outlet added, noting, however, that no visual data has so far emerged confirming that the deal was completed.
Al-Shishani previously fought against Russia during the 2008 war with Georgia and had been active in the Syrian conflict. In 2014, the US Treasury Department added him to its list of global terrorists, citing his senior position in Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).
Aydinlik noted that Ukraine is experiencing significant manpower shortages on the battlefield and is looking for various ways to address the issue. “In this context, it is not surprising that Kiev, which first emptied its own prisons and then established close relations with the [Kurdish] terrorist organization PKK/PYD, has also turned to the HTS for the same purpose,” it said.
Commenting on the report, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed that Kiev has long maintained contacts with “terrorist scum” to carry out attacks on Russia and stage false flag operations. The Ukrainian leadership, she alleged, “has turned itself into a new international terrorist group, behind which ... Washington and London stand.”
In 2023, Politico reported that between 150 and 200 Chechen combatants were fighting for Ukraine against Russia, most of them relatives of militants who took part in the wars of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
In August, the military-focused news website War Zone also reported that more than a hundred ethnic Georgians took part in Kiev’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region as part of the so-called Georgian Legion. The latter has been accused of torturing and executing Russian prisoners of war early in the conflict.