This article first appeared on the Atlantic Council site.

Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine and intensive military operations in Syria have caused a very big problem: a shortage of qualified people to man its occupation forces.

This personnel gap, caused by permanent, heavy losses suffered by Russia’s forces, has drastically changed the scale and character of its military missions.

At the early stages of the conflicts, this shortage of qualified military personnel was corrected by recruitment from the Army Special Operations Forces, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Foreign Intelligence Service and other special services.

But now, to fill this gap further, Russia has moved to employ private military companies (PMC), expand its recruitment base and punish contract soldiers for refusing to take part in its illegitimate operations.

To date, information about Russian PMCs remains limited. At least ten PMCs exist in Russia ; some operate outside its jurisdiction.

Following the Kremlin’s September 2015 intervention in Syria, about 1,500 Russian mercenaries arrived from the Russian PMC “Wagner,” which is linked to operations in Ukraine, where the group is known as “The Cleaners” in areas controlled by Russian and Russian-backed forces.

Soviet fighters of the PMC “Malhama Tactical,” with mainly Uzbek and North Caucasus roots, have been noted as forming the first jihadist PMC with a “ distinct niche between the worlds of professional PMCs and jihadi groups operating in Syria.”

Russian servicemen in historical uniforms take part in a military parade in Red Square, Moscow, November 7, 2016. Valentyn Badrak and others write that high casualty rates have resulted in widespread avoidance of tours to the Ukrainian border. Servicemen who try to avoid serving there have found themselves on the receiving end of the Russian government’s repressions. Russian courts fast-track resolutions to discharge and convict them, at times under threat of sentencing to penal colonies.NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/GETTY

To further expand its contracted recruitment base, the Kremlin has also amended the recruitment process for Russian conscripts, military reservists, stateless persons and foreign nationals.

Recruitment of Russian citizens for contracted military service is facilitated by the legislative package “On the Introduction of the Draft of Federal Law on Amendments to the Federal Law on Conscription and Military Service,” which passed on October 14, 2016. It enabled short-term missions for contracted recruitment of Russian conscripts and reservists.

Previously, the first military contract with the rank of soldier, seaman, sergeant, or sergeant-major was to be signed for two or three years. Positions with the rank of warrant officer, sub-officer, or officer stipulated five years.

Now, these categories are allowed to sign for a term of "between six months and one year" in the cases of “disaster relief or efforts related to a state of emergency, restoration of the constitutional order, and other extraordinary situations, or to take part in collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

Importantly, the amendments are further justified by “changes in the military and political situation, and intensified activity of international terrorist organizations,” resulting in “the necessity for increasing of mobility of troops (forces), the creation of combined and irregular detachments, and their expedited staffing by contract servicemen, to quickly accomplish short-term yet crucial missions related to participation in peace support operations and operations to fight against terrorist and extremist organizations.” The amendments were signed into law by President Vladimir Putin on December 28, 2016.

These amendments enable Russia to rapidly deploy and use a large invasion and occupation army, under the pretext that the detachments are carrying out “peace support operations” and “fighting against terrorist and extremist organizations.” In effect, they legalize the unlawful recruitment of conscripts for “short-term tours of duty” to Ukraine as contract soldiers.

Significant changes have also been made to the procedure for contracted recruitment and service in the Russian Armed Forces for stateless persons and foreign nationals.

On January 2, 2015, a presidential decree amended the “Provision on the Procedure of Military Service” to facilitate the contracted participation of stateless persons and foreign nationals in the Russian Armed Forces. The adoption of Russian citizenship is not required. This includes active service and operations abroad.

The low quality of life, high unemployment rates and Russian military bases in Central Asia and the Caucasus region make the CIS a fertile recruiting ground. Importantly, the territories of other separatist regions fomented by the Russian Federation (i.e., Crimea, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria) also contain Russian military bases and equipment, and may also deliver fresh recruits.

Russian-speakers in Western Europe, the Middle East, or North America may be willing to join, but with payment and social benefits well below international standards, they are likely to come from fringe groups. Russian experts estimate that twenty-five million Russian speakers could be recruited from abroad.

Such foreign recruits may be used as part of Russia’s neo-imperial policy and hybrid war waged through illegal armed formations, which could, at any point, turn into an open, armed aggression of the Russian army.

A real and serious threat lies in the recruitment and training of foreign individuals by Russian special services for use in extremist or terrorist groups and activities. The increase of this risk can be seen in the growing number of Russian and CIS militants actively participating in extremist and terrorist acts by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

High casualty rates in the Russian military have also resulted in widespread avoidance of tours to the Ukrainian border. Between 2014 to mid-2015, the most avoided appointment was service in the 12th Reserve Command of the Russian Armed Forces, in Novocherkassk, Russia, which was created to “officially deploy” Russian military servicemen (under concealment) to Ukraine.

Servicemen who try to avoid serving there have found themselves on the receiving end of the Russian government’s repressions. Russian courts fast-track resolutions to discharge and convict them, at times under threat of sentencing to penal colonies.

Employing PMCs, recruiting foreigners and forcing servicemen to fight in illegitimate wars and follow unlawful orders may be categorized as war crimes. In addition to creating military advantages and cutting costs, Russia’s leadership may also be facing criminal liability for its decision to initiate armed aggression with the use of unlawful forces in Ukraine and Syria.

The best evidence of such a course of events is the experience of leaders from former Yugoslavia, whose aggressive Balkan wars and ultra-nationalistic policies landed them as war criminals at the International Tribunal in The Hague.

Lada Roslycky is a soft power security expert and strategic communications adviser to government and nongovernmental institutions, including DCAF.Valentyn Badrak is the Director the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament StudiesDCAF).

Mykhailo Samus is the Deputy Director for International Affairs at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies (CACDS).

Volodymyr Kopchak is the Deputy Director of the (CADCS).

(Newsweek)

After any crime, regardless of scale, a swift, impartial and independent investigation is required if any accountability at all is desired. The French government, in the wake of an alleged “chemical weapons attack” near Syria’s northern city of Idlib, has claimed that it is “committed to ensuring that the perpetrators of this heinous attack are held accountable.”

A six-page report by French intelligence services claims the nerve agent came from hidden stockpiles of chemical weapons that Damascus was supposed to have destroyed under an U.S.- and Russian-brokered deal in 2013.

Were it the case that France was seriously committed to holding the perpetrators of the alleged attack accountable, the French government would need to call for an impartial, independent investigation into the attack, and as soon as possible. Instead, it decided to carry out its own “investigation,” ensuring neither impartiality nor independence, and by consequence, achieving no accountability.

Neither Impartial nor Independent

France is one of several nations directly involved in a multi-year US-led effort to violently overthrow the Syrian government.

Terrorist organizations fighting in and along Syria’s borders have, for 6 years now, brandished the black, green, white and red colonial flag of French-occupied Syria.

France itself has admittedly supplied militant groups fighting the Syrian government with financial, military and political support with many prominent members of the so-called residing within French territory, leading political efforts to overthrow the Syrian government remotely.

In a 2014 France 24 article titled, “France delivered arms to Syrian rebels, Hollande confirms,” its revealed that:

President Francois Hollande said on Thursday that France had delivered weapons to rebels battling the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad “a few months ago.”

The deliveries took place “a few months ago, when the Syrian rebels had to face both the armies of the dictator Bashar al-Assad and this terrorist group Islamic State,” Hollande told reporters on a tour of the French island of La Reunion.

“We cannot leave the only Syrians who are preparing a democracy … without weapons,” he added.

And French warplanes are flying over Syria, without a UN resolution or invitation by the Syrian government, bombarding its territory in an alleged effort to wage war on the very militant groups it has flooded with arms, cash and others forms of material support.

A nation directly involved in efforts to violently overthrow a government cannot in any rational way conduct an impartial, independent investigation into the actions of that targeted government.

France, by all legal metrics, is a compromised party with a direct stake in finding the Syrian government “guilty.” The evidence France claims to possess must be verified by an impartial, independent party, but even at face value, French “evidence” appears illogical and intentionally misrepresented amid its most recent claims.

French “Intel” Not Adding Up

French evidence is based on what French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault himself claims is, “a certain source,” which, in wording alone, resembles the ambiguity and oblique tactics used by the United States in the lead up to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. It is also language that would be inadmissible during any genuine legal proceeding.

In 2003, US and European politicians during interviews, press conferences and public speeches relied heavily on alleged evidence produced by similar unnamed sources. It would later be revealed that those sources were intentionally lying, and were intentionally cited in a wider effort to fabricate a false pretext for war with Iraq.

Additionally, France has attempted to implicate the Syrian government in the most recent alleged attack by claiming the same sarin nerve agent was also used in an alleged attack in 2013.

However, were this true, such a claim would require an indisputable conclusion drawn by an impartial, independent investigation that the 2013 attack was indeed carried out by the Syrian government, using not only sarin nerve agent, but the precise variant allegedly used in this most recent attack.

No such conclusion exists, with France failing to produce any of these basic legal or rational prerequisites, going far in explaining why the French foreign minister has resorted to the same ambiguous rhetoric used by US politicians in the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Despite this, the French government and those across US, European and Persian Gulf media have attempted to project confidence in this “investigation.” However, should the French government and its allies be so confident in their findings, they would invite a truly impartial, independent party to open up its own investigation, consider and verify this evidence and draw its own, impartial and independent conclusions.

The political capital provided to France and its allies by doing this would be enormous, yet no such investigation is being called for by France, the United States or any of the other parties involved in the protracted, violent dismemberment of the Syrian state. The answer to “why” they would forgo such a politically lucrative move can be explained by a total lack of confidence in their evidence, or certain knowledge that their “evidence” is entirely fabricated, and genuine investigations would only confirm that publicly.

And in fact, the only calls for a truly independent investigation have come from the Syrian government itself as well as from its allies in Moscow and Tehran. It should be noted that these nations were also among those opposed to the US invasion of Iraq based on similarly fabricated claims.

In all, the French “investigation” is nothing of the sort. Had the French government been truly committed to discovering the truth behind the recent alleged chemical weapons attack, it would have recognized its own limits as an impartial, independent investigator and forwarded its “evidence” to a party that is capable of a real investigation. Instead, it has embarked on an intentionally dishonest course of actions to conceal its lack of impartiality and independence, using tenuous if not fabricated claims to further deepen a violent, deadly and supremely costly conflict it itself is a key instigator of.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”, where this article first appeared.

Image Credit

(activistpost.com)