The Pentagon is preparing to resume full ground operations alongside Kurdish partners in northern Syria, officials said Tuesday, a move that risks further inflaming relations with NATO ally Turkey, which blames the Kurds for a deadly bombing in Istanbul last month and has threatened a ground assault in retaliation.
The Syrian Democratic Forces is an armed militia of the rebels in North and East Syria (AANES). An alliance of forces formed during the Syrian civil war composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian/Syriac, as well as some smaller Armenian, Turkmen and Chechen forces. It is militarily led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey, and also includes several ethnic militias, as well as elements of the Syrian opposition’s Free Syrian Army. Founded in October 2015, the SDF states its mission as fighting to create a secular, democratic and federalised Syria. According to Turkey, the Syrian Democratic Forces has direct links to the PKK.
The weapons are notorious for their effects on civilians. But five years of reporting and hundreds of interviews have revealed they’ve also killed and wounded scores of Americans.
On 30 November 2022, EU President Ursula von der Leyen announced that at least 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died. The announcement was so shocking that the figures were subsequently removed from the official announcement on the European Commission’s website and from the video version of the statement. Here is a look back at the battle over the figures and the attempt to rewrite the story in 1984 style.
On November 25, 2022, a demonstration in Kiev, mostly women, is demanding news about relatives who have been enlisted in the army. They are likely dead but nobody has informed the families.
The New York Times has verified the authenticity of videos apparently showing the execution of 11 surrendering Russian soldiers in the village of Makeyevka, Luhansk, in Eastern Ukraine earlier this month.
On November 9, 2022, Sergey Surovikin, the military commander of the special military operation for liberation of Donbass, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, reports publicly to Sergey Shoigu, Russian defense minister
[…] Kherson cannot be fully supplied and function. Russia did everything possible to ensure the evacuation of the inhabitants. Kiev strikes at the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and creates a threat of flooding of vast territories. The most expedient option is to organize defense along the barrier line of the Dnieper River. It is proposed to take up defense along the left bank. Keeping a grouping of troops on the right bank is futile […]
Part Two of a Three-Part CAM Series on Mercenaries and Clandestine Operations in Ukraine
[In Part Two of this three-part series on foreign mercenary fighters in Ukraine, (see Part 1) the nexus between mercenaries with experience in Syria, Ukraine and U.S.-EU-NATO armed forces becomes more apparent. This second part of the investigation looks at Shaun Pinner, Alexander Tobiassen, John Harding, Sjoerd Heeger, Craig Lang and Ben Fischer.—Editors]
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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