During the recent several days the rumor concerning the Russian military participation in the Syrian conflict has been actively discussed in the international press. A lot was written and shown on this topic. Our attention was drawn by the material located on the website of some Ivan Sidorenko entitled ‘Syria, Latakia – Syrian Arab Army / National Defense Forces Some Battle Footage from Today‘

This material contains several noteworthy moments, in particular the offscreen negotiation in Russian: time 2:03 – ‘Come on faster’, 2:06 – ‘Move on’, 2:10 – ‘Once again! Repeat!’, 2:30 – ‘Paulin, Paulin, we are moving forward’. In addition to that, the Soviet/Russian armed vehicles are shown. However, this is not strange. There is no secret that Assad’s army both previously and now is armed by the Kremlin friends and the deployment is provided with the use of the Russian large landing ships mainly from the Novorossiysk naval base.

The most attention was drawn by the armored fighting vehicle BTR-82А in standard Russian colors seen in the clip, time 0:40–0:43, 1:15–1:20 and 2:15–2:22. The armored fighting vehicles of this modification were put into service by the Russian army only several years ago. A number of the Russian military units are long waiting for the new armored fighting vehicles to replace old amortized junk.

It is known that the armored fighting vehicles BTR-82А were taken into use mainly by priority Russian military units, motorized rifle and intelligence brigade battalions. In the Southern Military District units these are the 7th occupational military base (occupied Abkhazia, Georgia), the 136th brigade (Republic of Dagestan), the 20th brigade (Republic of Chechnya); in the Central Military District – the 15th ‘Peacemakers’ brigade (Roshchinskiy, Samara Oblast), the 23rd brigade (Totskoye, Orenburg Oblast); in the Western Military District – the 27th brigade (Mosrentgen, Moscow Oblast).

As a result of the shallow analysis and comparison of the BTR-82А, seen in the material from Syria with similar vehicles that are in use in the above mentioned Russian military units, the closest similarity was found with the armored fighting vehicles of the 27th motorized rifle brigade (military unit No. 61899, located in the Moscow region).

In particular, in the group ‘Military unit 61899 Sevastopol 27 OMSBR. Brothers-in-arms’ the pictures of the BTR-82А with camouflage and board numbers of white color written according to the pattern identical with this brigade were found.

Notice: In different military units the camouflage of the vehicles and the pattern of writing board numbers are different. For instance, BTR of the 23th brigade has numbers written with red paint whereas BTR of the 7th military base has numbers written with white paint in bold.

The identification shown by us is not the evidence, but a number of side criteria – identical camouflage, commonly recognized type of vehicles board numbering in the Russian army, identical patterns of the fonts and colors and also the offscreen Russian voice confirms the supposition made above. Maybe soon we will learn more details concerning ‘a military assignment from Novorossiysk to Syria’ of the crew of the 1st vehicle from the 1st motorized rifle regiment, 1st battalion of the 27th brigade.

P.S. Update: As a result of the additional OSINT investigation the correspondence concerning the sending of the servicemen to Syria for 3–4 month long trips with ‘not bad salaries’ was found on the mother forum of the Russian military servicemen from the 27th separate motorized rifle brigade (February, 2013).

Thus, we have one more indirect proof that the video from Syria supposedly shows a BTR-82А unit of the Russian 27th brigade on the ‘Novo-Syrian’ assignment, rumored way back in 2013.

Please refer to the original links to the forum ‘Mama soldata’ [Soldier’s mother] -> military unit No. 61899, 27th brigade -> Our house – snuggles (continuation: 119), pages 46–49:
– http://mamasoldata.mybb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=654&p=46 (archive)
– http://mamasoldata.mybb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=654&p=47 (archive)
– http://mamasoldata.mybb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=654&p=48 (archive)
– http://mamasoldata.mybb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=654&p=49 (archive)

Original article by Mikhail Net