Ukrainian operatives aided Syrian rebels with drones, Washington Post reports

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Syrian fighters received about 150 drones as well as other covert support from Ukrainian intelligence operatives last month, weeks ahead of the rebels' advance that toppled Bashar al-Assad over the weekend, according to the Washington Post.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with Ukrainian military activities, the Post late on Tuesday said Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 drone operators and about 150 first-person-view drones about four to five weeks ago to aid Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Russia's foreign ministry had earlier said, without providing evidence, that the rebels had received drones from Ukraine and training in how to operate them, an accusation that Ukraine's foreign ministry at the time said it "categorically" rejected.

A former al Qaeda affiliate, HTS has moved to install an interim administration after Syria's 13-year civil war fractured the country amid one of the most oppressive police states in the Middle East under five decades of Assad family rule.

Russia, which is locked in its own conflict with Ukraine after invading the country in February 2022, is a key ally of Assad and stepped in to provide him military support in the country's civil war in 2015.

The Russian military had helped Assad's forces launch air strikes against the rebels earlier this month. But Russian war bloggers had warned that the toppling of Assad threatened not only two strategically-important Russian military facilities in Syria but also Moscow's very presence in the Middle East.

(Writing by Susan Heavey, editing by Deepa Babington)

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