Will the Ukraine and Syria conflicts get entwined with Iran’s accusations?

New Delhi: One conflict is raging in the grassy and forested expanses of the Eurasian steppes and the other in the semi-arid areas of the Levant, but the Ukrainian and the Syrian conflicts seemed to move towards a conflation of sorts as Iran has now charged Ukraine with supporting the HTS rebels advancing southwards.

The two conflicts did have a link, or perception thereof, as the Ukrainian war or special military operation pits Russia against the West, which accuses Iran and China of supporting Moscow. On the other hand, Russia, China, and Iran accuse the West of backing the Islamists of the Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra and linked to Al Qaeda.

However, on Friday, Iran accused Ukraine of aiding the terrorists, who moved out of the “sanctuary” in the northern Idlib province, on the border with Turkey, to overrun Aleppo and move into the Hama and Homs provinces.

Iran’s Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and Head of the Eurasia Department Mojtaba Damirchilu said that he was aware of reports claiming that Ukraine has been selling weapons to the militants in Syria and helping them with obtaining IDs, Iranian media reported.

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Those actions are “a clear violation of the international obligations of governments in relation to the prevention and combating terrorism,” he stressed, and demanded that Kiev “immediately halt” its assistance to “the terrorist groups”.

Citing the dangerous nature of “Takfiri terrorist elements” in Syria, which have long been on the UN Security Council’s list of terrorist organizations, Damirchilu described the use of such groups to destabilise the West Asia region “as an unethical policy, contrary to all principles and norms of international law”.

Alliances with terrorism only lead to the expansion of insecurity and violence in the world, and sooner or later, it will affect those who support it, he warned.

The Iranian diplomat also hit back on repeated accusations by Ukrainian officials that Iran has been supplying weapons to Russia, noting that the only goal of such “baseless” statements is to persuade the US and EU countries to supply even more arms to Kiev.

Iran “has not interfered in the conflict” and has consistently called for the sides to resolve the crisis through talks, Damirchilu stressed.

Ukraine has yet to respond to the Iranian allegations.

However, this is not the first time that Ukraine has been accused of using and equipping proxy forces, including deemed terrorists fighting Russian interests abroad, with earlier reports citing its help to Islamist rebels confronting government forces and their Russian auxiliaries in the sandy, trackless wastes of Africa’s sprawling Sahel region.

France’s Le Monde newspaper had recently reported that in Mali, where the ruling junta ended a long alliance with former colonial power France in 2022 in favour of Russian support Ukrainian drones were providing support for the Tuareg rebels “who are benefiting from discreet but decisive support” from Ukraine.

After over 130 Malian soldiers and Russian personnel of the erstwhile Wagner PMC were reportedly killed following days of clashes with Tuareg rebels and fighters linked to Al Qaeda in northern Mali in July, Ukrainian military intelligence service spokesman Andriy Yusov said that the rebels had “received necessary information” to successfully carry out the attack. He did subsequently backtrack, but the damage had been done.

As per Le Monde newspaper, Yusov’s statement had forced the Mali rebel commanders to “reluctantly acknowledge a co-operation (with Ukraine) they would have preferred to keep secret”.

Mali cut diplomatic relations with Ukraine in August, with a top official accusing Ukraine of violating the country’s sovereignty.

Neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, where the military is also in charge, have also accused Ukraine of supporting terrorism in the Sahel, by providing arms and information and demanded an end to the “spreading of the false information that repeats the fake narratives of the aggressor state’s propaganda”.

Now, the proxy war seems to travelled northeastwards to the Middle East.

But here the dangers are greater than in the rather remote Sahel, given the competing strategic interests of superpowers and regional powers. Russia, the US, and Turkey have military personnel in the country, Iran is promising to send troops if needed, and so have Lebanon’s Hezbollah and various Iraqi militias. Then, Israel is also next door.

On the face of it, Ukraine’s involvement in a proxy effort against Russia, which has invested great effort since 2015 in keeping its long-time ally Bashar Al Assad in power by intervening in the civil war on his side and still is providing military support, seems credible given the fiasco of its Kursk gambit.

Yet, international power politics is a notoriously opaque arena of smoke and mirrors where the intent behind the rhetoric is never obvious and requires context to decipher.