And MANPADS (and Stingers) lots of man-portable surface-to-air missiles.
Okay, just kidding about ISIS. It's actually the American-backed Syrian branch of Al-Qeada that would be fighting alongside of what remains of Azov and the other Ukrainian neo-Nazis
From Foreign Policy, March 15:
Syrian Fighters May End Up on Both Sides of the Ukraine War
Young Syrians have already served as mercenaries elsewhere.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted global condemnation and an international response greater than almost everyone expected. Dozens of countries have cooperated to sanction Russia and its oligarchs. Companies have pulled out of Russia in remarkable numbers. Members of the Western alliance have poured weapons and financial aid into Ukraine to meet the Russian invaders, while Ukraine has also created an international legion of foreigners willing to fight against Russia. By the second week of March, Ukraine said the number of foreign volunteers had approached 20,000.
Ukraine is not alone in seeking international assistance. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that according to American officials, Russia has started sourcing Syrians to fight on its behalf in Ukraine. Indeed, some Syrians are reported to be already within Russia, preparing to enter Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has issued a call for volunteers.
There’s a certain logic to this deployment. Some Syrians have been recruited by Russia for laboring jobs in separatist parts of Ukraine’s Donbass region in the past year. Syrians are already a convenient source of cheap labor. Footage of Syrians supposedly volunteering to fight in Ukraine, which was broadcast by Russian state TV, has been repudiated by experts. But Syrian analysts say that there nonetheless is a pool of pro-regime Syrians prepared to fight for Russia in Ukraine—for the right price.
The Russians “have huge reserve [in Syria] ready to serve them if they can provide the money,” Suhail al-Ghazi, a Syrian researcher at the Center for Middle East Studies, told me. Russia might yet see Syrians as a reserve of pliant fighters to feed into the conflict if necessary.....
*****
.... Syrians may turn up on both sides of Ukraine’s war, too. Individual survivors of the Syrian revolution have already stated their desire to fight for Ukraine against Russian invaders. The most notable, and likely the most famous, is Suheil Hammoud. Hammoud has been given the nickname “Abu Tow” because of his facility with the BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missile anti-tank weapon. According to open-source analysis, he is possibly the most effective destroyer of military vehicles in history—or at least the best documented.
“How can I go to Ukraine and fight alongside the Ukrainian army[?] Is there a way[?] I’m ready,” Hammoud tweeted. After being told that where there’s a will, there’s a way, he replied, “There is a strong will[.] I am in Idlib now and ready to go to support the Ukrainian army. I want to help someone.”
This is not an isolated sentiment. Across Syria, many of whose inhabitants blame Russia for their own country’s destruction, former and current fighters murmur about finding another battlefield to fight the Russians. In northern Syria, artists have created graffiti and murals describing Ukraine and Syria as kindred nations, having suffered each in turn the results of Russian imperialism.....
....MUCH MORE
There were reports that 450 Jihadis had made their way from Idlib through Turkey to fight for Ukraine but the sourcing on that was a bit sketchy.
Be that as it may be, I think the U.S. has already seen the Arm-Mujahideen/Al Qeada-with-MANPADS movie. As it turned out, after shooting down enough helicopters to make the Russians leave Afghanistan, the Kabul franchise of Al Qeada decided they liked their new weapons, a lot, and didn't give them back to their suppliers when they were done using them. The U.S. sent in the repo men and twenty years later the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division was the last American soldier to board an airplane out of Kabul.
The Al-Qeada enabling Taliban ended up with not just the MANPADS (and Stingers) but $80 Billion worth of other killing machines that included enough helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to give the T-ban a top-50 air force.
I may have to rethink my plans re: a farming empire in Ukraine if the anti-aircraft missiles aren't rounded up at the cessation of Uke-Rus hostilities.
