In late October, the US gathered intelligence indicating that Syria would provide Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, with the Russian-made surface-to-air SA-22 missile system. According to US officials, the Russian mercenary group, Wagner, was the conduit for the exchange.[44] A senior US military official told me that such an exchange would not have taken place without the explicit approval of the Kremlin. This was a wartime gift to Hezbollah from Russia—and an impactful one, giving the militant group the capability to target Israeli warplanes over Lebanon.
