5 dshk in Syria. Where did the fake about “new losses of the Wagnerites in Syria come from. Where, in principle, do the legs of this fake grow?

Some Russian media, at the suggestion of foreign propaganda resources, have been writing about “new losses of Russians in Syria” for many days now. According to publications, several representatives of Russian private military companies - the so-called Wagnerites - were killed. It is easy to see that these messages are nothing more than lies. But where and how did it come about?

Several liberal media disseminated information that Russian citizens were allegedly killed in the Syrian Deir ez-Zor on November 4 as a result of a bomb explosion. The publications refer to “their sources in Syria” and claim that only 11 people died, of which, according to their data, six belonged to the Wagner PMC, and five belonged to the Syrian military.

In short, none of this is true. The same people, who have been spreading such fakes for years, are already pretty tired.

The original sources of this stuffing are jihadist propaganda sites Zaman al-Wasl and Eldorar Alshamia. It was they who on November 2 published reports of an explosion near the Panorama facility, but gave different data on the number of victims. Zaman claimed that only six people died, later this number increased to 11, of which six turned into "Russian mercenaries" (Arabic originals do not know about any Wagner PMC). In general, Zaman, despite his “Muslim brotherhood” origin, works closely with the Americans, reports from the Azraq camp in the American-controlled al-Tanf zone, and has recently specialized in intimidating refugees returning to Syria (“Syrian intelligence has compiled a hit list of eight thousand people”, “refugees from Lebanon were killed at the border”, “return to Syria is a trap” and all the like). This is a new propaganda trend aimed at undermining the establishment of a peaceful life in Syria.

Two days later, the London-based Laboratory for Human Rights in Syria (SOHR) “consecrated” the fake with its repost, on which there is no place to put samples. At the same time, Russian liberals, at the suggestion of Western media and politicians, consider it the ultimate truth on Syrian issues.

It was this information that Novaya Gazeta reprinted, citing “its own sources,” which is at least ugly. However, after the publication of the "urgent message" with reference to "their own source in the Ministry of Defense" of information that the Russian pilot Hero of Russia Roman Filipov, who died in Syria, was allegedly a former Ukrainian pilot from Crimea, it would be extremely flattering for them to even paste this piece of paper over the walls of the dacha toilet. At the same time, the message about Filipov's "Ukrainian origin" has not yet been removed from the Novaya Gazeta website and is easily found by search engines. And no one got hurt for it. They didn't even print a rebuttal.

Now the “details” of the information boil down to the fact that the old building of the Syrian criminal police was blown up near the famous “Panorama” object (an architectural structure that before the war symbolized the entrance to Deir ez-Zor and a panoramic view of the city and the river), where "Headquarters of the 5th Corps" of the SAA, in which the "Russian mercenaries" were located. At the same time, the mention of Wagner PMC appeared only in Novaya Gazeta, which has been waging a personal war against PMCs and Prigozhin for a year now. This war is extremely ugly, it uses the bribery of "witnesses" and the fabrication of outright fakes. That does not negate the stability of the audience that consumes these fakes.

Arabic-speaking sources (not only pro-government ones) simply ignore all this "information". There was no such event. A series of explosions was recorded about 20 kilometers from Panorama along highway N7 at a sapper training ground, where the planned disposal of non-standard explosive devices previously captured from ISIS * took place. Government forces gave advance warning of this operation and even displayed an arsenal of American and British munitions seized at different times.

What is fundamentally wrong with this "information"?

The headquarters of the 5th Volunteer Assault Corps (DShK) is located in Latakia, that is, in the truest sense of the word, at the opposite end of the country in a straight line. There are intermediate headquarters of the 5th Corps in the area from Khoma to Palmyra, but not in Deir ez-Zor. This investigation can be closed.

Where, in principle, the legs of this fake grow?

The mention of the 5th DShK is associated with its alleged “Russianness”. The 4th and 5th corps of the government army were created at the turn of 2016/2017 after a fundamental decision was made to reform the CAA. Russian military advisers really took part in the formation of these corps and the training of personnel. It was the 5th Corps that showed the greatest combat capability in the CAA - along with the Tigers. Both became the main strike force of the government army, used in almost all critical sectors of the front.

The 5th Corps consists exclusively of volunteers (the first recruitment was carried out among the inhabitants of Homs and Palmyra). Its number never exceeded 10 thousand people, that is, it is rather an incomplete division. It includes several specific units, the role of which is determined by the peculiarities of Syria. For example, the Force of Tribes brigade was formed from Bedouin volunteers from desert tribes offended by jihadists, and successfully participated in the battles near Palmyra, Raqqa and in the desert around Deir ez-Zor. There is the "Baath Brigade", formed from members of the ruling party (about two thousand people), which acts as a guarantor of support for the authorities, as well as the "Assad Shield" brigade. The Shield of Maarda brigade is formed from Orthodox Christians, immigrants from the city of the same name near Damascus and the Maaloula region.

Worthy of special mention is the ISIS Hunters Brigade, a special forces unit trained entirely by Russian advisers. It is his various sources, including Russian-speaking ones (in fact, one person), who are tied to the Wagner PMC. No one has ever concealed the fact that among the advisers and instructors there are not only active military personnel, but also persons working under private contracts. But any mention of PMCs has now grown into an element of information warfare, and Novaya Gazeta is imagining Wagner behind every post. It doesn’t matter who trained the Syrians and how, the result is important: the 5th DShK quickly became one of the best units of the SAA.

And then everything came together: the 5th Corps participated in the liberation of Deir ez-Zor and was trained by the Russians. By the way, “information” is still circulating on the Web that allegedly in the field the actions of the 5th Corps are led by Russian officers and employees of PMCs. As evidence, award lists and certificates from the “command of the 5th Corps of the Russian Army” are published with a field mail number and allegedly signed by General Sevryukov. And it’s okay that these texts are written with grammatical errors, and in the Russian army there is simply no 5th corps with a characteristic field mail.

In the Deir ez-Zor area, local battles have indeed been going on for the past week and a half. Only the Syrian government army, and even more so the 5th Corps, do not take part in them. Clashes are taking place between the remnants of ISIS units and the former “Syrian Free Army” (“moderates”) for the possession of two small settlements on the Iraqi border and on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. Government forces do not participate in these battles, largely due to the unwillingness to provoke the pro-American coalition by crossing to the eastern bank of the Euphrates, which, due to circumstances, has come to be considered a territory controlled by the Kurds and proxy-American forces, although this is not recorded anywhere on paper.

That is, there are fights and “noise” from them. If you do not go into details, then you can simply write about the "battles at Deir ez-Zor."

The reader will automatically get the impression that the battles are being fought by government troops and conditional "Russians".

And the fact that in reality these are two anti-government groups for the third time recapturing the same piece of desert from each other is no longer important.

Previously, it was near Deir ez-Zor that the activity of Russian PMCs that were not related to the Ministry of Defense was noted. It was the crossing to the eastern bank of the Euphrates that provoked a clash with the Americans over control of one of the local oil fields. Thus, the link to Deir ez-Zor, as it were, legitimizes the mention of Wagner PMC in the fake.

This is how what today is commonly called “fake news” anglicism, fake news, is formed. Moreover, the construction of Novaya Gazeta turned out to be more complex than the original jihadist version. But it is quite possible that they thought it was not so difficult, but simply mechanically transferred the death toll to all “Russians”, added a reference to a non-existent “own source” and at the end attributed the phrase “Wagner PMC”, sacred to them. That's it, the sensational news about the "death of Russian citizens" is ready.

We did not start the information war, it was imposed on us. It’s as if the US didn’t come up with a system for using private companies in the war - but for our liberal publications, it was the Wagner PMC that turned into an information fetish. Losses are inevitable in war, but it is shameful to fabricate them for propaganda reasons.

* An organization in respect of which a court has made a final decision to liquidate or ban activities on the grounds provided for by the Federal Law "On countering extremist activity"

5th Assault Corps attracted media attention at the beginning of 2017 years after ISIS took over Palmyra, which even more revealed the need for more well-trained and equipped infantry formations to deal with crisis situations. In November 2016, the Syrian army announced the creation of the 5th assault corps - an elite all-volunteer unit backed by Russia and Iran.

At the moment, the number of personnel of the corps is 10 thousand military personnel. The corps headquarters was in Latakia, and military bases are scattered between Hama and Palmyra. As before, nothing is known about the top command staff of the formation. The corps is believed to be led by a group of Syrian commanders, assisted by a host of Russian advisers.

Since the creation of the 5th Corps, the unit has taken part in several offensive operations, the first and most important of which was the operation in Palmyra. The troops of the 5th corps were able to repulse the ISIS attacks on the key Tiyas air base, even though the unit did not have sufficient combat experience at that time.

After successfully defending the airbase for several weeks from continuous attacks by the ISIS, the troops of the 5th Corps, using new tactics, began a rapid advance towards Palmyra with active support from Russia from the air. On March 4, the 5th Corps and allied forces recaptured the ancient city with few losses compared to ISIS, which lost over 300 militants. The 5th Corps did not stop at Palmyra and the formation conducted several operations to expand the buffer zone around the city, including the capture of the Palmyra elevator, several heights and oil fields to the north and south of the city.

5 The Corps was the first formation to support the SAA and the National Forces defense during the recent jihadist offensive against Hama. On March 21, the corps fighters, together with the National Defense Forces and the Tigers, were able to stop the offensive and conduct a successful counterattack, recapturing more territory from the militants than they had taken during the offensive.

Many reports suggest that the backbone of an upcoming offensive east of Homs to break the siege Deir Ezzor will be fighters of the 5th Corps. Indeed, many local tribal fighters and local residents of Deir ez-Zor have already volunteered for the corps, and Russia continues to provide both material and military support to the corps. The operation, which could start at the end of 2017, will aim to retake the 150km highway between Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor and could be one of the largest operations since the start of the Syrian war.

The 5th Corps includes several groups of volunteers, among which are the Assad Shield, Maarde Forces and Victory or Death groups. However, the most significant groups are as follows:

ISIS hunters: A group of special forces formed from volunteers whose relatives and friends died at the hands of ISIS. Many fighters lived in the suburbs of Homs and Palmyra. The group is different in that it is fully armed and trained by Russia. It has already carried out dozens of raids and operations on ISIS positions all over Palmyra; it is believed that thanks to these operations, the city was recaptured in a very short time.

Tribal Forces: A group of volunteers from the tribes of Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and Hasaki. This unit stormed Palmyra during the last phase of the offensive. It is believed that this group will be in the forefront of the expected attack on Deir ez-Zor.

Baath Brigades: military group formed from members of the ruling Baath Party. It has at least 2,000 fighters and is tasked primarily with offensive operations in the deserts of Palmyra to ensure that the city is not lost again.

Regarding weapons available to the 5th Corps- most of it was supplied to the Russian army. Perhaps the most modern weapons available to the fighters of the 5th corps can be called tanks T-72B3 equipped with dynamic protection Contact 5 and thermal imagers. In large numbers in the Corps there are T-62m tanks with improved armor protection, which saved them from at least 5 ATGM hits, including TOW, in Palmyra and Northern Hama - then none of the crew members were injured. Apart from T-62 tanks in the compound are present in large quantities BMP-1, BMP-2, wheeled BTR GAZ Vodnik, equipped with machine guns of 14.5 mm caliber and also used as sanitary armored personnel carriers. In addition, the Corps has many

Some Russian media, at the suggestion of foreign propaganda resources, have been writing about “new losses of Russians in Syria” for many days now. According to publications, several representatives of Russian private military companies - the so-called "Wagnerites" - were killed. It is easy to see that these messages are nothing more than lies. But where and how did it come about?

Several liberal media disseminated information that on November 4, Russian citizens were allegedly killed in the Syrian Deir ez-Zor as a result of a bomb explosion. The publications refer to "their sources in Syria" and claim that only 11 people died, of which 6, according to their data, belonged to the Wagner PMC, and five were Syrian military personnel.

In short, none of this is true. The same people, who have been spreading such fakes for years, are already pretty tired.

The original sources for this stuff are the jihadist propaganda websites Zaman al-Wasl and Eldorar Alshamia. It was they who on November 2 published reports of an explosion near the Panorama facility, but gave different data on the number of victims. Zaman claimed that only six people died, later this number increased to 11, of which six turned into "Russian mercenaries" (Arabic originals do not know about any Wagner PMC). In general, Zaman, despite his “Muslim Brotherhood” origin, works closely with the Americans, reports from the Azraq camp in the American-controlled al-Tanf zone, and has recently specialized in intimidating refugees returning to Syria (“Syrian intelligence has compiled a hit list of 8,000 people”, “refugees from Lebanon were killed at the border”, “return to Syria is a trap” and all the like). This is a new propaganda trend aimed at undermining the establishment of a peaceful life in Syria.

Two days later, the London Laboratory for Human Rights in Syria (SOHR) “consecrated” the fake with its repost, on which there is no place to put samples. At the same time, Russian liberals, at the suggestion of Western media and politicians, consider it the ultimate truth on Syrian issues.

It was this information that Novaya Gazeta reprinted, citing “its own sources,” which is at least ugly. However, after the publication of an “urgent message” with reference to “its own source in the Ministry of Defense” of information that the Russian pilot Hero of Russia Roman Filipov, who died in Syria, was allegedly a former Ukrainian pilot from Crimea, it would be extremely flattering for them to even paste this piece of paper over the walls of the dacha toilet. At the same time, the message about Filipov's "Ukrainian origin" has not yet been removed from the Novaya Gazeta website and is easily found by search engines. And no one got hurt for it. They didn't even print a rebuttal.

Now the “details” of the information boil down to the fact that the old building of the Syrian criminal police was blown up near the famous “Panorama” object (an architectural structure that before the war symbolized the entrance to Deir ez-Zor and a panoramic view of the city and the river), where "Headquarters of the 5th Corps" of the SAA, in which the "Russian mercenaries" were located. At the same time, the mention of Wagner PMC appeared only in Novaya Gazeta, which has been waging a personal war against PMCs and Prigozhin for a year now. This war is extremely ugly and it uses the bribery of "witnesses" and the fabrication of outright fakes. That does not negate the stability of the audience that consumes these fakes.

Arabic-speaking sources (not only pro-government ones) simply ignore all this "information". There was no such event. A series of explosions was recorded about 20 kilometers from Panorama along highway N7 at a sapper training ground, where the planned disposal of non-standard explosive devices previously captured from ISIS took place. Government forces gave advance warning of this operation and even displayed an arsenal of American and British munitions seized at different times.

What is fundamentally wrong with this "information"?

Where, in principle, the legs of this fake grow?

The mention of the 5th DShK is associated with its alleged “Russianness”. The 4th and 5th corps of the government army were created at the turn of 2016-17 after a fundamental decision was made to reform the CAA. Russian military advisers really took part in the formation of these corps and the training of personnel. It was the 5th Corps that showed the greatest combat capability in the CAA (along with the Tigers). Along with the Tigers, the 5th Corps became the main striking force of the government army, used in almost all critical sectors of the front.

The 5th Corps consists exclusively of volunteers (the first recruitment was carried out among the inhabitants of Homs and Palmyra). Its number never exceeded 10 thousand people, that is, it is rather an incomplete division. It includes several specific units, the role of which is determined by the peculiarities of Syria. For example, the Force of Tribes brigade was formed from Bedouin volunteers from desert tribes offended by jihadists, and successfully participated in the battles near Palmyra, Raqqa and in the desert around Deir ez-Zor. There is the "Baath Brigade", formed from members of the ruling party (about 2 thousand people), which acts as a guarantor of support for the authorities, as well as the "Assad Shield" brigade. The Shield of Maarda brigade is formed from Orthodox Christians, immigrants from the city of the same name near Damascus and the Maaloula region.

Worthy of special mention is the ISIS Hunters Brigade, a special forces unit trained entirely by Russian advisers. It is his various sources, including Russian-speaking ones (in fact, one person) who are tied to the Wagner PMC. No one has ever concealed the fact that among the advisers and instructors there are not only active military personnel, but also persons working under private contracts. But any mention of PMCs has now grown into an element of information warfare, and Novaya Gazeta sees Wagner behind every post. It doesn’t matter who trained the Syrians and how, the result is important: the 5th DShK quickly became one of the best SAA units.

And then everything came together: the 5th Corps participated in the liberation of Deir ez-Zor and was trained by the Russians. By the way, “information” is still circulating on the net that Russian officers and employees of PMCs are allegedly leading the actions of the 5th Corps in the field. As evidence, award lists and certificates from the “command of the 5th Corps of the Russian Army” are published with a field mail number and allegedly signed by General Sevryukov. And nothing that these texts are written with grammatical errors, and in the Russian army there is simply no 5th corps with a characteristic field mail.

In the Deir ez-Zor area, local battles have indeed been going on for the past week and a half. Only the Syrian government army, and even more so the 5th Corps, do not take part in them. Clashes are taking place between the remnants of ISIS and the former Syrian Free Army (“moderates”) for the possession of two small settlements on the Iraqi border and on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. Government forces do not participate in these battles, largely due to the unwillingness to provoke the pro-American coalition by crossing to the eastern bank of the Euphrates, which, due to circumstances, has come to be considered a territory controlled by the Kurds and proxy-American forces, although this is not recorded anywhere on paper.

That is, there are fights and "noise" from them. If you do not go into details, then you can simply write about the "battles at Deir ez-Zor."

The reader will automatically get the impression in his head that the battles are being waged by government troops and conditional "Russians".

And the fact that in reality these are two anti-government groups for the third time recapturing the same piece of desert from each other is no longer important.

Previously, it was near Deir ez-Zor that the activity of Russian PMCs that were not related to the Ministry of Defense was noted. Just the transition to the eastern bank of the Euphrates provoked a clash with the Americans on the basis of control over one of the local oil fields. Thus, the reference to Deir ez-Zor, as it were, legitimizes the mention of Wagner PMC in the fake.

This is how what today is commonly called “fake news” anglicism, fake news, is formed. Moreover, the construction of Novaya Gazeta turned out to be more complex than the original jihadist version. But it is quite possible that they didn’t think so difficult there, but simply mechanically transferred the death toll to all “Russians”, added a reference to a non-existent “own source” and at the end attributed the phrase “PMC Wagner”, sacred to them. Everything, the sensational news about the "death of Russian citizens" is ready.

As my preface: The article is interesting not because it is about Syria. And not even about front-line everyday life there. The current situation in Syria can most accurately be described as "like in the USSR after Stalingrad." It will still take time and decent efforts to achieve the final victory, but what the barmaley lost there is already absolutely clear. With the help of the United States and the Middle Eastern countries or without it, it no longer plays any role. So we need to think one step ahead and start building a new model of intrastate relations with all local elites. Such people exist everywhere, including Russia, Europe or the USA, but in the Arab world their roles and influence are especially strong. Despite the obvious external intervention, the war in Syria is primarily a civil one, that is, caused primarily by internal reasons. More precisely, too many internal contradictions between the elites turned out to be in an unresolved impasse and trying to get out of it with the help of weapons then seemed to too many the best option. Such wars are not won by force of arms alone. Even the option - let all the good ones cut out all the bad ones at the root - does not work. On the contrary, it only complicates things even more. The example of the 5th assault corps shows how successful the strategy was offered to Assad by Russia, he accepted it and is effectively implementing it. And at the exit, behind the roar of shooting and puffs of powder smoke, without pomp and advertising hype, quietly but reliably, a new structure of the Syrian state is being formed. People who understand military affairs will immediately notice how local tribes and other armed formations are well integrated into formalized military structures.

Massive suicide attack did not help ISIS to keep Akerbat

The city of Akerbat in Syria has been completely liberated from ISIS with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Even a massive suicide attack, including many women and children, did not help the terrorists.

Akerbat, from which the remnants of the terrorist forces were knocked out the day before by the ISIS Hunters, could not know the long-awaited peace by Saturday morning - having regrouped, the ISIS launched a counterattack, having managed to recapture some of the previously lost positions. This once again reminds us that the enemy will seize every opportunity to tie down government forces - even where any reasonable hope of creating their own zone of influence or fortified area has long been lost: just to pull the SAA forces away from their really important objects like Deir ez-Zor.

ISIS Hunters - a special unit from the 5th Assault Corps - quite successfully carried out a "cleansing" of Akerbat, managing to knock out superior jihadist forces from it, but the fact that the special forces, even well-trained and motivated, still does not have the full range firepower and therefore had to be “supported” in time by ordinary line infantry and armored vehicles, organizing a strong defense in Akerbat. Unfortunately, the fact that this did not happen on time was the reason for the temporary success of the terrorists.

“But the CAA is throwing the most effective unit there and hoping that everything will work out. This is fraught with the loss of this unit. The ISIS Hunters have a specific and successful experience, so they, on the contrary, must be protected, and not used in positional battles, instead of regular forces. One has only to wish the “ISIS Hunters” maximum courage and resilience,” Asafov stressed.

Luck is, of course, important, as is the air support of the Aerospace Forces, which effectively destroyed enemy manpower and equipment, but it is difficult to cancel the basic laws of tactics and strategy ...

A few words about the 5th Assault Corps and its ISIS Hunters. Like many other successful and combat-ready units of the "new formation" SAA, the corps was formed with the active participation of Russian advisers in November 2016 exclusively from volunteers. "ISIS hunters" became the core of the unit and were recruited from among those willing, whose relatives and friends died at the hands of "shaitans".

What became the ISIS "trump card", with the help of which they were able to temporarily turn the tide in their favor? As usual - suicide attacks. And, worst of all, women and children became suicide bombers.

ISIS Hunters reported that the terrorist group used dozens of suicide bombers in their attacks, most of whom were women and children.

“We cannot say who these women and children are, whether they are trained or not. It is quite possible that these were not trained fanatics, but the remnants of the civilian population, which, under pain of death, were sent into battle. It is quite possible that it was an act of violence, including against the civilian population. It is difficult to speak,” the expert says.

The information is confirmed by Syrian sources:

It is still difficult to say anything concrete about the details of the battle. According to unverified reports, government forces suffered the loss of several tanks and a significant part of the territory. At the same time, there is also no need to talk about the return of Akerbat under the control of ISIS - at most, about dividing the city between enemy forces. The enemy's counterattacks are not limited to foot suicide bombers - of course, the usual "shahid-mobiles" are also used.

The fact that Akerbat will no longer become a stronghold of jihadists is obvious. Counterattacks will not bring results, since the forces of terrorists, already surrounded by government territories, will not be able to receive reinforcements and will dry up quickly enough. But the bitterness with which the fanatics rush into the suicidal battle themselves and the cruel immoralism with which they turn every person into a living bomb makes us understand: for the time being, we can only speak about the specific timing of the victory at Akerbat.

P.S. While the material was being written, official confirmation came that Akerbat had been taken and controlled by government troops. Now that the resistance of ISIS in central Syria has been broken, all that remains is to unlock Deir ez-Zor - and it will be possible to say that ISIS is finished as an organized military force.

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ISIS * is a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation by a court decision
Grigory Ignatov

ISIS Hunters reported that the terrorist group used dozens of suicide bombers in their attacks, most of whom were women and children.

The information is confirmed by Syrian sources:

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ISIS * is a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation by a court decision