Ukraine drew up plans to attack Russian forces in Syria: report

Ukraine drew up plans to attack Russian troops in Syria, according to reports, as part of a plan to divert personnel away from its territory.

Leaked documents revealed by The Washington Post show that Ukraine's intelligence agency investigated the possibility of using Syrian Kurdish fighters to strike Russian soldiers in Syria, where Moscow is providing the Assad regime with key military support.

This could include the use of drones and training US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces to carry out other "unspecified 'direct action' activities", forcing Russia to redeploy troops from Ukraine to Syria.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky shelved the plans, which the paper said could have been due to US pressure, a shortage of drones, or questions over its possible success.

Turkey is a key supplier of drones to Ukraine but is also engaged in its own military actions against SDF elements and cooperates in Syria via a tripartite forum with Iran and Russia.

The documents mention that Turkey was aware of the plans and "sought to avoid potential blowback", asking for the attacks to take place from Kurdish-controlled territories rather than areas where Turkish-backed Syrian rebels are present.

The documents, part of a trove of US military data recently leaked to the media, claims that the SDF agreed to the plans but wanted Ukraine to ensure the operations were kept secret.

Some SDF elements cooperate with Russian forces in northeastern Syria, while the militia group has since denied any knowledge of the plans.

"The documents that you are talking about regarding our forces are not real; our forces have never been a side in the Russian-Ukrainian war," Farhad Shami, an SDF spokesperson, told The Washington Post.

The plan could have included attacks on Russian forces in Syria's coastal region, which would prove very costly for Moscow, or hitting lightly defended oil installations in central Syria.

It would likely "incur a Russian response targeting U.S. interests in the region if support for an operation is attributed to the United States", while the plan hinged on support from Ankara and Washington.

Plausible deniability options could include attributing attacks on Russian forces to "front, defunct or active nonstate groups", hinting that rebel groups were responsible.

The SDF worked with the US to defeat the Islamic State group in Syria, while Moscow intervened in the Syria war in 2015 to bolster Bashar Al-Assad's forces.