There has been some non-broadcast media discussion about a battle that took place in Syria on February 7th, 2018. According to the generally accepted overview, U.S. and coalition forces appear to have killed scores of Russian mercenaries, some reports put the number as high as 200.
Officially Russia has denied their troops were engaged in the failed attack against U.S. and coalition forces; however, actions by Russia since the battle seem to convey a more confirming message.
Bloomberg reported around 100 Russian contracted mercenary soldiers, hired by Syria’s Bashir Assad, were killed by a coalition force of U.S. and Kurdish forces in what would easily be the deadliest clash between Russians and Americans since the cold war.
More than 200 contract soldiers, mostly Russians fighting on behalf of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, died in a failed attack on a base held by U.S. and mainly Kurdish forces in the oil-rich Deir Ezzor region, two of the Russians said. The U.S. official put the death toll in the fighting at about 100, with 200 to 300 injured, but was unable to say how many were Russians. (link)
The contracted mercenaries are likely from a Russian company Wagner, similar to the U.S. company Blackwater. Because they are not officially Russian soldiers there’s a great deal of built in plausible deniability. As Bloomberg also noted: ““This is a big scandal and a reason for an acute international crisis,” said Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat and lawmaker who’s now an independent political analyst. “But Russia will pretend nothing happened.””
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