The spokeswoman of the Russian foreign ministry has said Russia will support Kurdish Peshmerga in the upcoming operation against Islamic State (ISIS) in Mosul. “We are supporting the Kurds, we will support all those Kurdish forces fighting against ISIS and are liberating their land and country from terrorist groups, especially the Iraqi Kurds, and the support will be delivered with approval from Baghdad,” Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of the Russian foreign ministry, told Rudaw on Friday. The Russian parliament also supports providing military aid to the Peshmerga. “We are supporting the Kurds because they are one of the prominent forces that have been fighting radical and extremist groups for longtime, especially in Iraq and Syria and also because the Kurds been fighting for centuries to achieve independence we will support them” said Boris Usvyatsov, an MP and chairman of the military experts commission in Russian Parliament. “Moscow does want to become part of the ongoing tension in Iraq, therefore they cannot closely train Peshmerga and provide support for them, but regarding to the sending arms to the Kurds, Russia should do so in order to protect its land,” said Vladimir Evseev, a military expert at Russia Direct. Russia has supported the Kurds in both Iraq and Syria in their ongoing war against ISIS militants. The Russians have also provided the Kurdish Peshmerga with arms and ammunition. When the Russians in September 2015 decided to directly participate in the fight against ISIS the Kurdistan Region welcomed their decision. “The Kurdistan Region welcomes Russia if its helps the Peshmerga in the war against ISIS,” the office of President Masoud Barzani said in a statement in October 2015. “The Kurdistan Region welcomes any country or party that would help the Peshmerga against ISIS and in this light we welcome Russia’s participation,” read the statement. Earlier this year both the Russian consulate and KRG ministry of Peshmerga confirmed that Russia delivered arms to the Peshmerga. “The arms were delivered included five anti-aircraft autocannons and 20,000 shells” according to Artem Grigoryan, the attaché to the Russian consul general in Erbil, to Russian News Agency RIA Novotsi last March. “Just like [US-led] anti-ISIS coalition members, the Russian Federation provides us with military assistance. It has provided us with military assistance about three times in the past,” Jabar Yawar, the chief of staff for the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga ministry, told Voice of America at the time. Also Russia’s ambassador to Iraq, Elijah Anatoyevich Margonov, told President Barzani that his country “is ready to help the Peshmerga militarily in the fight against ISIS.” This is according to a statement released from Barzani’s office. “If we’re talking about deliveries free of charge to Iraqi Kurdistan in order to strengthen the capacity of the Kurdish Peshmerga self-defense forces, this is done in coordination with the Iraqi government in Baghdad, where Russian planes arrive for customs procedures and to obtain consent to proceed to Erbil. The Kurds are primarily supplied with small and medium firearms and ammunition,” Margonov told Russian news agency RIA Novosti at the time. And Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov expressed Russia’s commitment to supply Peshmerga with arms and confirmed these supplies were delivered to the Peshmerga with Baghdad’s approval. “We took into account the Kurds' need in the supplies of our arms to Iraq, but these supplies were made through the central government, through Baghdad," Lavrov told TASS news agency in January. The coalition partners are eyeing on the role of Peshmerga in the Mosul battle and they want to make sure they have enough support. As part of its ongoing support for Peshmerga the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the military coordination between the Kurdistan Region and the United States in Erbil last Tuesday. “The memorandum makes references to military and financial support to the Peshmerga forces and also to some of the details of the Mosul operation,” said the Kurdistan Presidency.
