Kremlin admits that Russian volunteers might be fighting in Syria
The Kremlin admits that Russian volunteers may be fighting in Syria, but says that, even so, official data of the Russian Ministry of Defense should be consulted for the number of casualties among Russian soldiers there, reports the Russian media.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated this in regards to Reuters, which alleged that the number of Russians that have been killed in Syria is higher than was officially stated.
According to him, the Russian volunteers who may be in Syria have nothing to do with Russia’s support of the Syrian army.
“No, we do not see (grounds for re-checking the data on losses). The data (from the Kremlin) comes through the Ministry of Defense, and this data should be relied upon as the official information,” Peskov added.
“If there are some Russian citizens in Syria serving as volunteers and so on, this is not through the state and the Ministry of Defense, it has nothing to do with it. So it would be interesting to find out from Reuters where this information comes from and what sources they have,” Peskov said.
According to Reuters, at least 40 Russians have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the year. But according to the official numbers from the Russian Ministry of Defense, ten Russian citizens have been killed in Syria this year. Reuters notes that the number of dead Russian servicemen in Syria in the first half of the year exceeds the country’s losses in Syria in the previous 15 months of the operation.