From Syria to Sudan

How Ukraine Battles Russian Forces Abroad

As mentioned in my previous Substack, the collapse of the Assad regime should be viewed as a sign of Russia’s diminishing power projection capabilities. Having lost support from the wider public in the wake of the Arab Spring, the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad was heavily dependent on direct military intervention from its allies as a means of securing legitimacy. With Russia’s preoccupation with the ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the decimation of Iranian proxies in the Levant, Assad’s regime crumbled when faced with a renewed push by a broad coalition of rebels.

Looking beyond the power vacuum left by Tehran and Moscow, observers should consider the importance of an often overlooked yet significant factor in the collapse of the Assad regime: the Ukrainian advisors, technicians, and special forces operators that have fought Russian troops and proxies for nearly three years. Since the 2022 invasion, Ukrainian intelligence has waged a quiet war against Moscow’s deployments in…