ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Arkadiy Babchenko 1.  On May 29, Ukrainian media reported that Arkadiy Babchenko, a Russian citizen and journalist living in Ukraine,  had been killed in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev . The Ukrainain government and the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) immediately accused Russia of being behind the attack. The mainstream media and international organizations joined the coverage of the incident blaming Russia for the killing. 2.  On May 30, Babchenko appeared to be alive and showed up at a press conference along with SBU Chief Sergey Gritsak and Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko. Gritsak claimed that the death of Babchenko had been staged in order to trace an organizer of the crime. The SBU once again accused Russia of being behind the alleged attempt to kill Babcheno. According to the initial SBU version. The organizer [identified as “G”] is detained; The hitman [identified as “C”] hired by the organier contacted the SBU to reval th...

The logo of Liwa Thuwar Idlib The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) formed a new Arab force under the name “Liwa Thuwar Idlib”, the Syrian pro-opposition news outlet Shaam reported on June 1. According to the report, the new force will be led by former Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander “Iskandar Alaa” and will consist of more than 500 fighters, who had  previously served in the US-backed Army of Revolutionaries and Ahrar al-Zawiya. Iskandar Alaa Shaam claimed that the SDF will soon announce the formation of the new force in order to “liberate the governorate of Idlib”, which is currently under control of the former branch of al-Qaeda, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). This is not the first time when the SDF shows its interest in Idlib. On January 13, Saleh Muslim, a former leader of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), revealed during an interview that  the SDF is planning to enter Idlib in order to fight “terrorism” . However, the new force will not be able...