• The Syrian rebels who swept to power in Damascus last weekend received drones and other support from Ukrainian intelligence operatives who sought to undermine Russia and its Syrian allies, according to sources familiar with Ukrainian military activities abroad. Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 experienced drone operators and about 150 first-person-view drones to the rebel headquarters in Idlib, Syria, four to five weeks ago to help Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the leading rebel group based there, the knowledgeable sources said.
• The aid from Kyiv played only a modest role in overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Western intelligence sources believe. But it was notable as part of a broader Ukrainian effort to strike covertly at Russian operations in the Middle East, Africa and inside Russia itself.
• Ukraine's covert assistance program in Syria has been an open secret, though senior Biden administration officials said repeatedly in answer to my questions that they weren't aware of it. Ukraine's motivation is obvious: Facing a Russian onslaught inside their country, Ukrainian intelligence has looked for other fronts where it can bloody Russia's nose and undermine its clients..
• Russia clearly was surprised by HTS's rapid advance on Damascus—but interestingly, Russian sources have tried to minimize the Ukrainian role. 
• The Syria operation isn't the only instance of Ukrainian military intelligence operating abroad to harass Russian operatives. The BBC reported in August that Ukraine had helped rebels in northern Mali ambush Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group. The July 27 attack killed 84 Wagner operatives and 47 Malians, the BBC said.
• Like Ukraine's Africa forays and its assault on the Kursk region inside Russia, the covert operation in Syria reflects an attempt to widen the battlefield—and hurt the Russians in areas where they're unprepared. Ukraine's aid wasn't "the drone that broke that camel's back," so to speak. But it helped, in at least a small way, to bring down Russia's most important client in the Middle East. And like Israel in its failure to anticipate Hamas's surge across the Gaza fence on Oct. 7, 2023, Russia saw the Ukrainian-backed rebels coming, but couldn't mobilize to stop the attack and prevent the devastating consequences.

Read the full article at The Washington Post.

Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. Photo by AP Photo/Hussein Malla.