There are concerns that the number of deaths could rise as the condition of some wounded civilians were critical

File photo shows civil defence members extinguishing a fire broke out after Russian air strikes hit Idlib's Ma’arrat al-Numan district, Syria on February 7, 2018. (AA)

At least seven civilians were killed in airstrikes carried out by Russian aircraft in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, local civil defense officials said Wednesday.

"During the airstrike attacks of the war planes in Ma'arrat Hurma village seven civilians were killed and 10 civilians injured, mostly women and children. In the Hass village the children and Nisa hospital was attacked," Mustafa Hajj Youssef, director of the White Helmets civil-defence agency said.

Youssef said that after search and rescue operations ended, the airstrikes started again.

There are concerns that the number of deaths could rise as the condition of some wounded civilians were critical, Youssef added.

Additionally an air observatory officer, Hilal Muhammad said that the war planes took off from Russia's Khmeimim Airbase in western Syria and conducted their first attack in southern Idlib's Urum al-Joz village after attacking Ma'arrat Hurma village.

Notably, Idlib falls within a network of de-escalation zones, endorsed by Turkey, Russia and Iran, in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Controlled largely by anti-regime groups, Idlib has remained the target of intense airstrikes for the last two months. In January alone, 211 civilians were killed in the province while another 1,447 were injured.

During the airstrike attacks in Idlib's de-escalation zone at least six hospitals and health centres were also targeted.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.

Source: AA</s>An unknown number of private Russian military contractors were killed by a U.S. strike in Syria, Russian media reported Tuesday in a development that could further inflame Russia-U.S. tensions.

Officials in both Moscow and Washington remained coy about the deaths, which would be an embarrassment for both countries if it turns out that Russian fighters were part of a unit that attacked a military force with American troops.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, refrained from commenting on reports about the incident last week, saying they need to be verified.

Asked during a conference call with reporters if Putin raised the episode during a phone conversation Monday with President Donald Trump, Peskov said the situation in Syria wasn’t discussed during the call.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that Russia has told the U.S. there were no Russians in the area of the strike. Mattis said he saw the news reports about Russian contractors possibly being casualties of the bombing.

“I don’t have any reporting that some non-Russian Federation soldiers, but Russian contractors were among the casualties,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him in Europe. “I can’t give you anything on that. We have not received that word at Central Command or the Pentagon.”

Russian media said the Russian private contractors were part of pro-government forces that advanced on oil fields in the eastern Deir el-Zour province and were targeted by the United States. The reports cited activists who confirmed that at least four Russian citizens were killed in Syria.

During the war in Syria, Russia and the United States have maintained a communications channel to avoid collisions between their warplanes and soldiers in the chaotic battlefield.

If Russian deaths from the U.S. strike are confirmed, it would mean the two countries were on the verge of a direct military confrontation in Syria.</s>(CNN) Several Russians who had been hired as paramilitary contractors were among more than 100 men killed in US airstrikes in northern Syria last week, according to their friends and families.

The men were working for a private Russian company called Wagner, which has sent hundreds of private contractors to Syria to help both the Russian military and pro-regime forces, according to people who knew them.

One of the dead was 51-year-old Vladimir Loginov. Like many contractors who have gone to Syria, he was a member of a Cossack group of ultranationalists who have also fought in eastern Ukraine.

The Baltic Cossack District said in a statement that Loginov was a Russian citizen who was killed in an "unequal battle" while "heroically defending our Fatherland in its far reaches from crazy barbarians" when he died on February 7.

"Vladimir died for the Fatherland, the Cossacks and the Orthodox faith!" the group said.

CNN has been able to confirm the names of at least three other Russians who were killed supporting pro-regime militia in a large-scale attack that day. According to US officials, a force of some 500 crossed the Euphrates River near Deir Ezzor, along with tanks, missile launchers and artillery.

Their target was a base of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which came under artillery fire. A US detachment was at the base. The US responded with airstrikes that killed about 100 of the attackers, according to the coalition, with the rest retreating.

One of the Russians killed was Kirill Ananyev, according to his friend Aleksandr Averin. He said Ananyev had been in Syria "a little over a year" and that he had been killed when "American artillery smashed the Wagner unit."

Averin said he believed that casualties among the Russians present amounted to more than "the typical Wagner loss of just a couple of people."

Most of the casualties, according to local sources, appear to have been members of a pro-regime Christian militia from the town of al Suqaylabiyah. Earlier this week, there was a mass funeral for about 30 members of the militia -- which often describes itself as the "ISIS hunters" -- in the town.

Two sons of a prominent tribal leader were also killed, according to social-media posts from Syria.

Wagner, which is under US sanctions for supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine, has several hundred contractors in Syria, according to analysts. In December, Nikolay Tikhonivch from Tomsk was killed "in the area of the Hama-Idlib highway," according to a social-media post from the "Rus" patriotic group to which he belonged.

Two Wagner contractors who were captured by ISIS in November have not been heard from since appearing in a video soon after being seized. They are believed to be dead, according to Russian officials.

Wagner is registered in Hong Kong and has no public offices in Russia and no contact details. Efforts by CNN to reach the company were unsuccessful.

US Defense Secretary General James Mattis has said that the US was puzzled by the attack near Deir Ezzor last week.

"The Russians told us they had no forces there initially. I think that's still the case but we don't have full clarity on what the regime forces are doing there," Mattis said over the weekend.

The US and Russian militaries have de-confliction channels to prevent accidental clashes in Syria and alert each other to movements.

"The Russians professed that they were not aware when we called them about that force that had crossed [the Euphrates]. As it came closer they were notified when the firing began," Mattis said.

Neither the Kremlin nor the Russian Ministry of Defense talks about private military contractors in Syria. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday: "We have no information regarding other Russians who may be in Syria."

It is very difficult to estimate the number of Russians working as military contractors in Syria and the number who are killed.

For days, rumors have swept through Russian social media that far more than a handful of Wagner contractors were killed in last week's engagement. On Monday liberal presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky said: "If massive Russian casualties took place, then relevant officials ... must announce this to the country and find out who is responsible."

Kremlin spokesman Peskov rejected Yavlinsky's assertion, saying: "I don't think Yavlinsky has more reliable sources than this."

There were many Russian citizens overseas, Peskov said, "and it's very hard to have detailed information."</s>In what is being characterized as the deadliest clash between Russian and American forces since the Cold War, U.S. airstrikes reportedly killed around 200 Russian "mercenaries" during a failed attack on a U.S.-held military base in eastern Syria last week.

The large number of casualties was first revealed by Bloomberg in a report on Tuesday that adds crucial details to last Thursday's news of fresh U.S. airstrikes in Syria, which outlets at the time said resulted in the deaths of "pro-Syrian government" fighters.

The Syrian government denounced the deadly U.S. airstrikes as "new aggression." No U.S. casualties have been reported.

While Russia currently appears to be downplaying the incident in an effort to keep tensions with the U.S. at bay and claiming the Russian military "had nothing to do with the attack" on the U.S.-held military base, the Kremlin took aim at America's "illegal presence" in Syria and accused the U.S. attempting to "capture economic assets" in a statement immediately following news of the airstrikes last week.

"It's not clear who was paying the Russian contingent" that was killed in last week's strikes, Bloomberg observes. "Reports in Russian media have said Wagner—a shadowy organization known as Russia's answer to Blackwater, now called Academi—was hired by Assad or his allies to guard Syrian energy assets in exchange for oil concessions."

Vladimir Frolov, a political analyst and former Russian diplomat, warned in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday that the deadly airstrikes could spark "an acute international crisis."

"This is a big scandal," Frolov said.

In a graphic, Bloomberg highlighted several recent incidents that have contributed to soaring tensions in Syria, including recent Israeli airstrikes in the country.

"Such clashes are just the latest indication of the expanded role played by outside powers," writes independent journalist Reese Erlich on the increasingly volatile situation and the perils of the presence of U.S. troops in north-eastern Syria.</s>At least seven men from the central Russian village of Kedrovoye are believed to have joined a private military company which suffered devastating losses by a U.S. airstrike in Syria.

It was reported that more than 200 private Russian military contractors were killed in a failed attack on a base held by U.S. and Kurdish forces last week.

For Russian mother Farkhanur Gavrilova news of the losses came when an acquaintance called her to say that her son was among those killed in the airstrike.

The war there has pitted Russian and U.S. combatants against each other for the first time.

Gavrilova's son, 37-year-old Ruslan Gavrilov, was one of seven men in this central Russian village of 2,300 who are believed to have joined a private military company called Wagner.

The company reportedly was involved in a 7 February attack on U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria when it suffered big casualties the U.S. counter strike.

'He was torn to pieces,' the 67-year-old Gavrilova said, speaking Thursday in her sparsely furnished apartment. 'If he was alive - he is a plucky guy - he would have tried to call.'

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday for the first time acknowledged that five Russians had been killed by the U.S. strike in Syria, emphasizing they weren't on active military duty.

Previously, both Russian and U.S. officials said they had no information on Russian casualties in the clash.

Russian forces are supporting the Syrian government in the fight against opposition groups, some of which are backed by the U.S. and elements of both sides are fighting the last remnants of the Islamic State group in Syria.

Moscow and Washington long have feared a collision between Russian and U.S. combatants in Syria and sought to prevent it by maintaining a regular communications link between the militaries.

Observers blame the 7 February clash on a lack of co-ordination between the Russian military and private military contractors in Syria.

Along with the Russian military, thousands of Russians have also reportedly fought in Syria as private contractors.

That allows the Kremlin to keep the official death toll from its Syrian military campaign low, helping to avoid negative publicity as President Vladimir Putin runs for re-election in Russia's 18 March presidential vote.

Gavrilova said she had tried to dissuade her son, who was remodeling apartments, from going to Syria but he was lured by a promise of a high pay.

'Why did they leave? Because of poverty, to make money,' Gavrilova said.

Russian law forbids the hiring of mercenaries or working as one.

Putin declared victory in Syria on a visit to a Russian military base there in December, and ordered a partial pullout of troops. Many Russian politicians and commentators long have assailed the Kremlin for failing to acknowledge the Russian contractors' presence in Syria.

A push for oil assets appears to have been the top mission for Russian private contractors in Syria. The Associated Press last year obtained a copy of a contract between a Russian company and the Syrian government that would give the Russians a 25 percent cut of the proceeds from the oil fields they capture and guard.

Unlike many other military contractors with previous experience of fighting alongside Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Gavrilova's son hadn't even done his military service.

'I thought they went there to do some odd jobs,' Gavrilova said. 'They did not even undergo medical tests. He called me from Krasnodar and asked: `Mother, what is my blood type?''

The Krasnodar region in southern Russia hosts a training base for the Wagner company on the grounds of a Russian Defense Ministry installation, according to social media evidence and testimony of the relatives. A listing for the company could not be found to seek comment.

Gavrilova and a relative of another Wagner fighter said the men from Kedrovoye all traveled to Krasnodar before traveling to Syria.

Asked if she knew anyone else in the village whose family members were fighting in Syria, Gavrilova pointed at a two-story house just across the yard. Yevgeny Berdyshev, interviewed there, quoted his half brother Alexander Potapov as saying he was driven to go to Syria by 'patriotic sentiment'.

'He would say: `Putin is waging the right war. He's killing IS fighters . but I understand, of course, that he didn't have a choice,' Berdyshev said.

Potapov, a 54-year-old father of two, had fought in two separatist wars in Chechnya. Yet work was hard to come by, especially because he was no longer young, had a hand injury and a criminal conviction, Berdyshev said. Potapov worked at a sawmill before he left in October last year with Gavrilov.

Starved of reliable information about Russians in Syria, the residents in Kedrovoye, 880 miles east of Moscow, are getting together, compiling lists of who went to Syria and exchanging any news they get from the men's associates.

Potapov's brother showed a piece of paper with six names of other locals now in Syria.

One more, Igor Kosoturov, originally from the nearby town of Asbest but linked to Kedrovoye people, is also believed to have been killed in Syria. Natalya Krylova, a local legislator in Asbest, confirmed Kosoturov's death.

Krylova, who has been friends with him for several decades, said the 45-year-old Kosoturov went to fight alongside Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine in 2015 and received the town's award for a 'humanitarian mission' there.

Oleg Surnin, head of a paramilitary Cossack group in Asbest, said by phone it was 'evident' that Kosoturov and another Asbest resident, Stanislav Matveyev, were killed in the U.S. airstrike on Feb. 7, but he wouldn't elaborate.

The grieving families are waiting for those who survived the U.S. strike to come home and describe what happened to the others.

'At first, everyone was weeping out loud, but how long can you cry?' Gavrilova said. 'It's the uncertainty that's gnawing at me.'

She said she couldn't understand why Russian men ended up on a battlefield in Syria if they were not part of the Russian army.

'Why were they taken away? Why does this organization exist?' she asked.

Berdyshev is indignant about the Russian government's refusal to even acknowledge the existence of the private contractors.

'They do exist,' he said. 'The government sends in troops, it is responsible for its actions . They sent in the troops, they sent back the troops, but actually there are still some (Russians), and it's all secretive.'</s>'Dozens' Of Russian Mercenaries Reportedly Killed In U.S. Airstrikes In Syria

Updated at 4:05 a.m. ET

A punishing series of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria last week reportedly killed an unknown number of Russian mercenaries fighting on behalf of the Damascus regime, with some sources saying there were "dozens" of casualties.

The Pentagon says a counterattack aimed at defending U.S. forces in the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province a week ago went on for more than three hours and involved B-52 strategic bombers, AC-130 gunships, F-15E attack planes, Apache attack helicopters and Reaper drones.

As we reported at the time, U.S. military officials say they were in contact with Russian counterparts during the attack and were assured that Russia would not engage coalition forces in the vicinity.

Russia officially withdrew regular forces from Syria in December after two years of fighting in support of President Bashar Assad, but hundreds of private military contractors and mercenaries remained.

The Kremlin on Wednesday said it could not rule out that there were Russians in Syria, but that if so, they had no affiliation with Russian armed forces.

A Syrian military officer says about 100 Syrian soldiers were killed on Feb. 7 and 8. Russian media has cited unconfirmed claims that the number of dead is as high as 200 and that many of them could be Russian nationals.

Reuters on Monday reported that two Russian fighters, Vladimir Loginov and Kirill Ananyev, had been identified as killed in the fighting, along with "dozens" of other Russians last Wednesday.

The Conflict Intelligence Team, a group of respected Russian online researchers, was quoted by The Moscow Times as saying it had found at least three tweets announcing the deaths of Russian mercenaries in Syria on the day of the airstrike.

"It is beyond doubt that this incident indeed took place. It is notable that the posts about their deaths emerged rather quickly – relatives and colleagues often learn of Russian mercenaries' deaths weeks or even months after the fact," the group said in a Facebook post.</s>Scores of Russian mercenaries were reportedly killed when US forces carried out air strikes against a pro-regime force in eastern Syria last week, according to US and Russian reports.

If the high estimates of Russian casualties are confirmed, it would be the most lethal clash between US and Russian citizens since the end of the cold war, and it comes at a time when proxy forces in Syria are increasingly coming into contact, as they compete for territory vacated by retreating Islamic State militants.

Bloomberg News quoted Russian sources as saying as many as 200 Russian nationals could have been killed in a clash last Wednesday and Thursday around the oil fields of Deir Ezzor region between forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad and a Kurdish-led opposition force supported by US advisers.

The New York Times said that Russian and Syrian officials had estimated that dozens of Russians had been killed.

US Central Command said on Tuesday that US forces came under fire from a tank, and that they responded with three hours of intense strikes from drones and B-52 bombers against the attackers, which it described as a unit of 300 to 500 fighters.

Air force Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigan said US advisers had been in an operating base alongside units the mostly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the course of anti-Isis operations, when they came under tank fire. He added that the senior officer at the base called in airstrikes in response.

Harrigan said the attacking forces were fighting on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, but said he would “not speculate on the composition of this force, or whose control they were under”.

He said: “This is a hostile force that was coming after our partners and coalition advisers so we are going to defend ourselves.”



The Conflict Intelligence Team, a group of well-respected Russian online researchers, said it had found three Twitter posts announcing the deaths of Russian mercenaries in Syria on 7 February.

“It is beyond doubt that this incident indeed took place. It is notable that the posts about their deaths emerged rather quickly – relatives and colleagues often learn of Russian mercenaries’ deaths weeks or even months after the fact,” the group said in a post.

Grigory Yavlinsky, an opposition politician, said that if if Russian citizens had been killed in large numbers, Vladimir Putin and other officials owed the country an explanation.

“I demand an explanation as to why Russian nationals take part in ground military operations in Syria, despite the statements by the president and defense minister that Russian military formations will be withdrawn from this country,” Yavlinsky saidt.

Without mentioning the incident directly, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, warned on Tuesday that “Americans have taken dangerous unilateral steps” in Syria in siding with SDF forces, who control an extensive region in northern Syria.

“Those steps look increasingly as part of efforts to create a quasi-state on a large part of Syrian territory from the eastern bank of the Euphrates all the way to the border with Iraq,” Lavrov said, in remarks that highlighted the geopolitical jostling in Syria in the wake of the fight against Isis.

Igor Strelkov, a nationalist army veteran who was instrumental in Russia’s military operations in eastern Ukraine but now opposes the Kremlin, said in an online post that the deaths should be a warning for any Russians considering “going to Syria to earn [money]”.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said the Kremlin had no information about the deaths of any Russian mercenaries in Syria. “We only deal with the data that concerns Russian forces servicemen,” he said. “We don’t have data about other Russians who could be in Syria.”</s>It became clear on Tuesday that US airstrikes last week in eastern Syria killed an unknown number of Russian mercenaries fighting on behalf of the Syrian government. But both the US and Russia continued to dismiss the possibility that the deadliest clash known between US and Russian nationals since the Cold War could lead to open conflict between the two nation’s forces.

 That’s because Russia has never acknowledged that it has been using military contractors in the region, and US military officials have gone to great lengths not to define the composition of the “pro-regime forces” its air assets struck on Feb. 7. The surge of details seeping out on Tuesday — through social media posts from family members in Russia, from Syrian rebel commanders, and local news reports — provided enough information, however, to know that something dramatic had taken place. Here’s what people on the ground say happened A commander of Jaysh Usud al-Sharqiya, a Syrian rebel group, on Tuesday confirmed reports to BuzzFeed News that Russian private military contractors were killed by the US-led coalition. He cited sources who live in the region where the attack took place, an area that had been under the control of his rebel faction until a US-backed Kurdish force took over. "The regime tried to take control of the Conoco gas field, and there were no other elements to guard the field," the commander, who asked that his name not be published, told BuzzFeed News. US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces had taken the field from ISIS militants in September. "The regime, with the support of the Russian security firm Wagner and a pro-Iranian militia, attacked the field, but the coalition forces hit the column and destroyed it,” he said. The coalition also struck a convoy of tanks in the village of Tabiya, and then hit the rest of the military convoy when it was in Deir Ezzor city and the town of Khasham, the commander told BuzzFeed News. Pentagon officials did not immediately confirm this report. The involvement of Wagner Group, a private paramilitary company, was also cited by Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian military research site based in Moscow that has been collecting social media reports identifying Russian casualties in Syria. "While the total number of 'Wagner' operatives killed in Coalition airstrikes is unlikely to ever be established, it is beyond doubt that this incident indeed took place. It is notable that the posts about their deaths emerged rather quickly — relatives and colleagues often learn of Russian mercenaries' deaths weeks or even months after the fact," CIT wrote Monday in a Facebook post.

The US has been sparse with details but consistently describes what took place as self-defense. According to defense officials, 300 to 500 troops “moved in a battalion-sized unit formation, supported by artillery, tanks, multiple-launch rocket systems and mortars” toward a headquarters of the Syrian Defense Forces, the Kurdish-Arab group the US supports in Syria. US forces were also located at the headquarters, which US officials said is about eight miles east of the Euphrates River, which has acted as a “deconfliction line,” meaning essentially a line that divides US-allied forces from those backing the Syrian government. When up to 30 artillery and tank rounds landed within 500 meters of the headquarters, Kurdish and US forces retaliated with a combination of air and artillery strikes. As of Tuesday, US officials maintained that roughly 100 pro-regime forces had been killed in the counterattack. “There was incoming fire, and we were with the SDF, hunkered down, not provoking, and a force is massing and coming at us, so we're going to defend ourselves,” the head of US Air Forces Central Command, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. But when it comes to who actually made up those “pro-regime forces,” and confronted with news reports that dozens if not hundreds of Russian nationals were among the casualties, US officials have gone to great lengths to be as vague as possible. Speaking from Qatar, Harrigian would “not speculate on the composition of this force, or whose control they were under” when asked about Russian casualties, describing it as a “wide group of folks.” “I think it's important to recognize that it's not as simple to sort out exactly who everybody is down there,” he said. “Right now ‘pro-regime force’ is probably the best definition we have to describe who they were. It's really just not helpful for me to speculate… There's a fair number of groups involved with this and it's always difficult to precisely sort that out.” Pressed repeatedly on the issue, everyone from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to Pentagon spokespeople reverted to the same two points: Whatever took place was self-defense, and the Russians were warned before the attack began. “They were notified when the firing began. That's when we heard there were no Russians there,” Mattis told reporters the day after the attack. “And we go out of our way to ensure that we do not endanger the Russians, as you know.” “I have no idea why they would attack there, the forces were known to be there, obviously the Russians knew,” he said. “We have always known that there are elements in this very complex battle space that the Russians did not have, I would call it, control of.”

Russian media have also reported that US and Russian officials communicated before the US aerial assault. Komsomolskaya Pravda, a news outlet with ties to the Russian armed forces, reported that the incident began when contractors from a private security company attempted to take control of a large oil refinery. The outlet said the contractors expected the Kurds to retreat when they saw the size of the force approaching them. Instead, the news site reported, US officers at the headquarters contacted Russian officials to ask if any Russian military personnel were in the area. "They confirmed that they were not involved in military action in the area," the report said. "After which the Americans never held back." "They simply routed us," the paper quoted one source as saying. "Artillery first, then helicopters... Of course, the number of fatalities is not 600 or 200. As a result, almost everyone from the 5th assault detachment died, they were burnt together with their hardware.” "They do not report to the Defense Ministry," the paper said. "Therefore, the Defense Ministry bears no responsibility for them." Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, said on Tuesday that the Kremlin doesn’t know anything about Russian citizens who might be on the ground in Syria except for soldiers with the Russian armed forces. What’s the truth about Russian mercenaries in Syria? The involvement of shadowy Russian contractors in the area has been apparent for months. According to a report by Fontanka, a St. Petersburg-based independent news site, more than 3,000 Russians contractors have fought in Syria since 2015. Last October, an ISIS video purported to show two Russian soldiers whom militants said they had captured during a Russian-backed offensive to retake Deir Ezzor. In the video, released through the ISIS AMAQ news agency, the two men appear battered and handcuffed. One of them speaks in Russian, with Arabic subtitles, identifying the pair. He gave their dates of birth and hometowns in southern Russia, saying they were captured during an offensive against ISIS. Russia denied that any of their military personnel had been taken hostage. Syrian government forces, helped by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, broke ISIS’s three-year siege on the Deir Ezzor in August. At the same time, Kurdish militias backed by the US-led coalition fought ISIS militants on the other side of the Euphrates River and recaptured parts of the same province from the group.</s>Updated at 4:05 a.m. ET

A punishing series of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria last week reportedly killed an unknown number of Russian mercenaries fighting on behalf of the Damascus regime, with some sources saying there were "dozens" of casualties.

The Pentagon says a counterattack aimed at defending U.S. forces in the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province a week ago went on for more than three hours and involved B-52 strategic bombers, AC-130 gunships, F-15E attack planes, Apache attack helicopters and Reaper drones.

As we reported at the time, U.S. military officials say they were in contact with Russian counterparts during the attack and were assured that Russia would not engage coalition forces in the vicinity.

Russia officially withdrew regular forces from Syria in December after two years of fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad, but hundreds of private military contractors and mercenaries remained.

The Kremlin on Wednesday said it could not rule out that there were Russians in Syria, but that if so, they had no affiliation with Russian armed forces.

A Syrian military officer says about 100 Syrian soldiers were killed on Feb. 7 and 8. Russian media has cited unconfirmed claims that the number of dead is as high as 200 and that many of them could be Russian nationals.

Reuters on Monday reported that two Russian fighters, Vladimir Loginov and Kirill Ananyev, had been identified as killed in the fighting, along with "dozens" of other Russians last Wednesday.

The Conflict Intelligence Team, a group of respected Russian online researchers, was quoted by The Moscow Times as saying it had found at least three tweets announcing the deaths of Russian mercenaries in Syria on the day of the airstrike.

"It is beyond doubt that this incident indeed took place. It is notable that the posts about their deaths emerged rather quickly – relatives and colleagues often learn of Russian mercenaries' deaths weeks or even months after the fact," the group said in a Facebook post.

"Much about the attack and the associated casualties has been obscured in the fog of war. For reasons that remain unclear, Syrian government troops and some Russian nationals appear to have attacked a coalition position, near Al Tabiyeh, Syria. "The attack occurred in the vicinity of Deir al-Zour, a strategic, oil-rich territory that is coveted by the Syrians. Most of the fatalities were attributed to an American airstrike on enemy columns that was called in by American-backed Kurdish soldiers who believed they were under attack."</s>Vladimir Putin has been challenged to publicly admit to mass deaths of hundreds of Russian mercenaries fighting in Syria this month.

The Russian President is accused of covering-up the government's is reliance on 'cannon fodder' hired guns to minimise the extent of regular army casualties.

More than 600 Russian mercenary soldiers have reportedly been killed in Syria in recent weeks, many in airstrikes carried out by the U.S.-led coalition.

Both U.S. and Russian sources report that more than 200 contract soldiers were killed in a failed attack on a base held by U.S. and Kurdish forces in Deir Ezzor, northeast Syria, last week, Bloomberg reports.

However, the Kremlin said today it had no information about Russian mercenaries reportedly being killed in Syria, saying it only knew about Russian nationals who had been deployed there as members of the Russian armed forces.

'We don't have information about other Russians who might be in Syria,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call when asked about the alleged deaths.

Moscow's denial comes despite the leader of one of the private armies of mercenaries being photographed meeting Putin and attending a ceremony in the Kremlin.

Opposition politician Grigory Yavlinsky, who is standing against Putin in next month's presidential election, has called on him to come clean on his use of mercenaries to prop up Syrian president Bashar-al-Assad - and to tell the Russian people the scale of the losses.

Mr Yavlinsky claims mercenary forces 'are trained at Russian army facilities' and 'receive military awards in the Kremlin' in secret, he alleged.

'They are, in essence, special troops of the Russian army - despite the fact that mercenaries and private military companies are officially banned in Russia'.

'Officially denying deaths of armed Russian citizens that fight in Syria by the leadership of Russia is absolutely unacceptable,' he said.

'I call on Russian president Vladimir Putin to clarify this. If there were mass deaths of Russian citizens, then relevant officials including Commander-in-Chief of Russian Armed Forces (Putin), must announce it to the country and determine who is responsible.'

The Kremlin has consistently refused to talk about the deployment of mercenaries - which is illegal in Russia - to Syria and rebel-held eastern Ukraine.

Yet the number of Russians killed in bloody clashes in recent days could be as high as 600, according to Igor Strelkov, a former intelligence officer who was a commander of pro-Putin clandestine military operations in Ukraine.

'It is clear that there are hundreds of dead and injured, several hundreds,' he said.

'But the latest figure looks too extreme, it's allegedly over 600.'

He claimed he was told by Russian private army sources in Syria that by Saturday 644 had been killed, but he could not verify the figure.

Pictures of a handful of the mercenaries who perished in Syria in the past week have emerged.

One was Cossack fighter Vladimir Loginov, 51, from Kaliningrad, a father of two who formerly worked for the Russian Interior Ministry, who died in a U.S.-led coalition airstrike on February 7.

He fell 'heroically defending our Motherland in its far reaches from crazy savages', according to the Baltic Cossack Union in Kaliningrad.

Other mercenaries killed were Stanislav Matveyev, 38, and Igor Kosoturov, 45, from Asbest, Alexey Ladygin, 26, from Ryazan and Kirill Ananyev, 33, also with the same private military unit.

Several of the mercenaries killed were reportedly employed by a shadowy private army called Wagner, which has close ties to the Russian defence ministry and whose leader has met Putin.

Wagner - or Vagner - is the nickname of an ex-Russian special forces officer called Dmitry Utkin, who runs the private army.

Utkin is reported to be the ex commander of the famous Pskov special forces brigade and has been photographed with other Wagner army chiefs and Putin at a Kremlin ceremony. Other leaders of Wagner include decorated former senior Russian army personnel.

Such 'deniable' forces enabled Russia to deploy in Crimea, other areas of Ukraine and Syria, while denying its soldiers were on the ground.

The funding for the secret army is believed to come from Russia's military budget.

A military analyst said: 'Russia is putting these mercenary forces in harms way on the ground, while the regular army and Air Force are not at the frontline.

However, the Kremlin said today it had no information about Russian mercenaries reportedly being killed in Syria, saying it only knew about Russian nationals who had been deployed there as members of the Russian armed forces.

'We don't have information about other Russians who might be in Syria,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call when asked about the alleged deaths.
Russian aircraft carry out airstrikes in Ma'arrat Hurma village in Idlib, Syria, killing seven civilians and injuring 10 others.