September 15, 2024: Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, the HUR Ukrainian military intelligence service has grown in size and activities. Most of the activities are in the open, like attacks on Russian military or intelligence overseas. These often involve the use of foreign airlines and railroads by unidentified Ukrainian HUR operatives passing themselves off as Ukrainian or Russian civilians. Because the Ukrainian and Russian languages closely resemble each other, it’s easy for a Ukrainian to speak unaccented Russian, but not so easy when a Russian tries it. Many intelligence operatives speak several languages, especially English. The international language airline flight control is English because early in the history of commercial flying most of the aircraft were American. During World War II, the largest air force the world has ever known was American. That continued for many decades after the war and is still generally true in 2024. In other words, if you want to be an intelligence agency field operative, you must speak English, even if it is heavily accented. The United States is a large country that includes Alaska and Hawaii. These two areas contain a lot of people who still speak Inuit Alaskan languages and Hawaiian native languages that never died out. America is the land of many different accents.

Which gets us back to the Ukrainian HUR intelligence field operatives in Syria, where the Khimik detachment got into the country unobserved and then infiltrated the Russian Kuweires airbase and destroyed a mobile electronic warfare system Russia had been using to protect the base from drone attacks. As soon as the electronic warfare system was out of action, numerous drones attacked the unprotected base and did significant damage.

Why would Ukrainian intelligence undertake such a mission so far from Ukraine? It was because this base was also used to train Russian mercenaries to fight in Ukraine. The training was specialized and the students caused problems for the Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invaders.

Russian forces originally appeared in Syria after the Six-Day War, then left sometime after the Yom Kippur War, and returned in 2015 to assist the beleaguered ruler Bashar Al Assad. Hafez al-Assad, the father of Bashar, had ruled Syria from 1971 to 2000. Hafez sided with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was a longtime ally of Russia until he died in 2000. His son Bashar took over and was even more efficient, and vicious, than his father. The relationship with Russia increased as Russia used the Syrian port of Targus for their tiny Mediterranean Fleet and a nearby airbase for military and commercial aircraft. This airbase was also used to support the activities of Russian ally Iran in Syria.

There are a lot of Russians operating in Syria, especially since 2015. Russia thought it was safe to train operatives for their war against Ukraine. HUR found out about that and did something to disrupt the Russian operation. This is not the first time HUR has gone after Russian operations in third countries. What was unique about the Syrian operation was that HUR involvement became known, something HUR prefers to avoid. HUR did achieve their objective in Syria, so the overall operation was a success.

It won’t be known for years or decades how many overseas HUR operations there were and how many foreign countries HUR operated in to defeat Russian operations. For example, Russian paramilitary operatives have been very active in Africa, especially Congo, where Russia wants to assure their access to rare minerals that are mined there. They must compete with China and several Western countries. HUR has apparently been causing problems for Russia in Congo as well and has managed to conceal their involvement. HUR may be operating against Russian interests in other parts of the world, including South America. HUR prefers to keep their presence hidden, even from allies like the United States.