A senior Hezbollah commander is leading training sessions for Russian troops in the use of Iranian-made drones to prosecute Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian intelligence report.

Ukrainian media sources on Monday quoted the assessment of Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) that Kamal Abu Sadiq — a commander of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization — is training the Russians with the assistance of officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian soldiers are being schooled in the operation of drones, including the Shahed-136/-131, the Ababil-3 and the Qods Raab 85, which have been used to deadly effect against civilian population centers in a war fast approaching its second anniversary.

The training is taking place at the Shayrat Airbase in the Syrian city of Homs. The Israeli Air Force has launched airstrikes against Shayrat on several occasions since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, which triggered a new round of tensions between Israel and Iran’s regional allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The Ukrainian intelligence report highlighting Abu Sadiq’s role comes one week after the GUR revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime is recruiting mercenaries in Syria — where Russian arms helped to secure the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad during that country’s devastating civil war — to fight in Ukraine.

In a post on the Telegram social media channel, the GUR said “the aggressor state of Russia is recruiting mercenaries in Syria to participate in hostilities against Ukraine.” It noted that about 1,000 newly-recruited mercenaries were being trained in urban warfare techniques at the Kuweires Military Aviation Institute near the city of Aleppo. From Kuweires, the mercenaries were taken “to the Khmeimim air base, and from there to the territory of the Russian Federation,” the GUR said. “After arriving in Russia, they are issued Russian passports, and then mobilized into the occupation army.” An accompanying video showed some of the mercenaries brandishing Russian passports just five days after submitting their applications.

“Recruiting Syrians for the war indicates the deterioration of the moral and psychological state of the Russian occupying forces due to large-scale losses,” the GUR post observed.

Iran has emerged as one of Russia’s key allies since Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, providing the Russian regime with military and diplomatic support. Recent efforts in the US to bolster Ukraine’s defensive capabilities have been blocked by Congressional Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump, who last week threatened to allow the Russians “to do whatever they hell they want” to European allies who fail, on his terms, to contribute a significant portion of their national budget to defense.

On Monday night, the US Senate approved a $95 billion aid package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel in its war against Hamas. However, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has pledged to block the bill over a dispute concerning security arrangements on the US-Mexico border, saying that “any so-called national security supplemental legislation must recognize that national security begins at our own border.”

 

 

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