In a corner of the departures area at Rostov airport in southern Russia, agroup of about 130 men, many of them carrying overstuffed military-stylerucksacks, lined up at four check-in desks beneath screens that showed noflight number or destination.

When a Reuters reporter asked the men about their destination, one said:“We signed a piece of paper – we’re not allowed to say anything. Any minutethe boss will come and we’ll get into trouble.

“You too,” he warned.

The chartered Airbus A320 waiting on the tarmac for them had just flown infrom the Syrian capital, Damascus, disgorging about 30 men with tannedfaces into the largely deserted arrivals area. Most were in camouflage gearand khaki desert boots. Some were toting bags from the Damascus airportduty-free.

The men were private Russian military contractors, the latest human cargoin a secretive airlift using civilian planes to ferry military support toSyrian President Bashar al-Assad in his six-year fight against rebels, aReuters investigation of the logistical network behind Assad’s forces hasuncovered.

The Airbus they flew on was just one of dozens of aircraft that oncebelonged to mainstream European and US aviation companies, then were passedthrough a web of intermediary companies and offshore firms to MiddleEastern airlines subject to US sanctions – moves that Washington allegesare helping Syria bypass the sanctions.

The flights in and out of Rostov, which no organization has previouslydocumented, are operated by Cham Wings, a Syrian airline hit with USsanctions in 2016 for allegedly transporting pro-Assad fighters to Syriaand helping Syrian military intelligence transport weapons and equipment.The flights, which almost always land late at night, don’t appear in anyairport or airline timetables, and fly in from either Damascus or Latakia,a Syrian city where Russia has a military base.

The operation lays bare the gaps in the US sanctions, which are designed tostarve Assad and his allies in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the Hezbollahmilitia of the men and materiel they need to wage their military campaign.It also provides a glimpse of the methods used to send private Russianmilitary contractors to Syria – a deployment the Kremlin insists does notexist. Russian officials say Moscow’s presence is limited to air strikes,training of Syrian forces and small numbers of special forces troops.

Reuters reporters staked out the Rostov airport, logged the unusual flightsusing publicly available flight-tracking data, searched aircraft ownershipregistries and conducted dozens of interviews, including a meeting at afashionable restaurant with a former Soviet marine major on a US governmentblacklist.

Asked about the flights and the activities of Russian private militarycontractors in Syria, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putinreferred Reuters to the Defence Ministry – which didn’t reply to thequestions. The Syrian government also didn’t reply to questions.

In response to detailed Reuters questions, Cham Wings said only thatinformation on where it flies was available on its website.

The flights to Rostov aren’t mentioned on the site. But the journeys doappear in online flight-tracking databases. Reporters traced flightsbetween the Rostov airport and Syria from Jan. 5, 2017, to March 11, 2018.In that time, Cham Wings aircraft made 51 round trips, each time usingAirbus A320 jets that can carry up to 180 passengers.

The issue of military casualties is highly sensitive in Russia, wherememories linger of operations in Chechnya and Afghanistan that dragged onfor years. Friends and relatives of the contractors suspect Moscow is usingthe private fighters in Syria because that way it can put more boots on theground without risking regular soldiers, whose deaths have to be accountedfor. Forty-four regular Russian service personnel have died in Syria sincethe start of the operation there in September 2015, Russian authoritieshave said. A Reuters tally based on accounts from families and friends ofthe dead and local officials suggests that at least 40 contractors werekilled between January and August 2017 alone.

One contractor killed in Syria left Russia on a date that tallies with oneof the mysterious nighttime flights out of Rostov, his widow said. Thedeath certificate issued by the Russian consulate in Damascus gave hiscause of death as “haemorrhagic shock from shrapnel and bullet wounds.”

*Trying To Choke Off Asad’s Access To Aircraft*

To sustain his military campaign against rebels, Assad and his allies inRussia, Iran and the Hezbollah militia need access to civilian aircraft tofly in men and supplies. Washington has tried to choke off access to theaircraft and their parts through export restrictions on Syria and Iran andthrough Treasury Department sanctions blacklisting airlines in thosecountries. The Treasury Department has also blacklisted several companiesoutside Syria, accusing them of acting as middlemen.

“These actions demonstrate our resolve to target anyone who is enablingAssad and his regime,” John E. Smith, director of the Treasury Department’sOffice of Foreign Assets Control, said in testimony to a congressionalcommittee in November.

In recent years, dozens of planes have been registered in Ukraine to twofirms, Khors and Dart, that were founded by a former Soviet marine majorand his onetime military comrades, according to the Ukraine nationalaircraft register. The planes were then sold or leased and ended up beingoperated by Iranian and Syrian airlines, according to the flight-trackingdata.

One of the companies, Khors, and the former marine major, Sergei Tomchani,have been on a US Commerce Department blacklist since 2011 for allegedlyexporting aircraft to Iran and Syria without obtaining licenses fromWashington.

But in the past seven years, Khors and Dart have managed to acquire orlease 84 second-hand Airbus and Boeing aircraft by passing the aircraftthrough layers of non-sanctioned entities, according to informationcollated by Reuters from national aircraft registers. Of these 84 aircraft,at least 40 have since been used in Iran, Syria and Iraq, according to datafrom three flight-tracking websites, which show the routes aircraft fly andgive the call sign of the company operating them.

In September, the US Treasury Department added Khors and Dart to itssanctions blacklist, saying they were helping sanctioned airlines procureUS-made aircraft. Khors and Dart, as well as Tomchani, have denied anywrongdoing related to supplying planes to sanctioned entities.

The ownership histories of some of the aircraft tracked by Reuters showedhow the US restrictions on supplies to Iranian and Syrian airlines may beskirted. As the ownership skips from one country to the next, the complexpaper trail masks the identity of those involved in Syria’s procurement ofthe planes. One of the Cham Wings Airbus A320 jets that has made theRostov-Syria trip was, according to the Irish aircraft register, once ownedby ILFC Ireland Limited, a subsidiary of Dublin-based AerCap, one of theworld’s biggest aircraft-leasing firms.

In January 2015, the aircraft was removed from the Irish register, said aspokesman for the Irish Aviation Authority, which administers the register.For the next two months, the aircraft, which carried the identificationnumber EI-DXY, vanished from national registers before showing up on theaircraft register in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian register gave its new owner as Gresham Marketing Ltd, whichis registered in the British Virgin Islands. The owners of the company aretwo Ukrainians, Viktor Romanika and Nikolai Saverchenko, according tocorporate documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.Ukrainian business records show they are managers in small localbusinesses. Contacted by phone, Romanika said he knew nothing and hung up.Saverchenko couldn’t be reached by phone and didn’t respond to a letterdelivered to the address listed for him.

In March 2015, Gresham leased EI-DXY to Dart, according to the Ukrainianaircraft register. The identification number was changed to a Ukrainiannumber, UR-CNU. On Aug. 20, 2015, Khors became the aircraft’s operator, theregister showed.

A representative of the Ukraine State Aviation Service said the registerwas not intended as official confirmation of ownership but that there hadbeen no complaints about the accuracy of its information.

From April that year, the aircraft was flown by Cham Wings, according todata from the flight-tracking websites.

Gillian Culhane, a spokeswoman for AerCap, the firm whose subsidiary ownedthe plane in 2015, didn’t respond to written questions or answer repeatedphone calls seeking comment about what AerCap knew about the subsequentowners and operators of the plane. Dart and Khors didn’t respond toquestions about the specific aircraft.

Four lawyers specializing in US export rules say that transactionsinvolving aircraft that end up in Iran or Syria carry significant risks forWestern companies supplying the planes or equipment. Even if they had nodirect dealings with a sanctioned entity, the companies supplying theaircraft can face penalties or restrictions imposed by the US government,the lawyers said.

The lawyers, however, said that the legal exposure for aircraft makers suchas Boeing and Airbus was minimal, because the trade involves second-handaircraft that are generally more than 20 years old, and the planes had beenthrough a long chain of owners before ending up with operators subject tosanctions.

Two of the lawyers, including Edward J. Krauland, who leads theinternational regulation and compliance group at law firm Steptoe &Johnson, said US export rules apply explicitly to Boeing aircraft becausethey’re made in the United States. But they can also apply to Airbus jetsbecause, in many cases, a substantial percentage of the components is of USorigin. Boeing said in a statement: “The aircraft transactions describedthat are the subject of your inquiry did not involve The Boeing Company.Boeing maintains a robust overall trade control and sanctions complianceprogram.” An Airbus spokesman said, “Airbus fully respects all applicablelegal requirements with regard to transactions with countries under U.N.,EU, UK and US sanctions.” – Agencies