Battle Zones: Ukraine and Syria

>> NARRATOR: Tonight on Frontline, two battle zones.

First, on the ground in Ukraine, with both sides of the conflict.

(gunshots) Ukrainian nationalists... and Russian separatists... >> (chanting): Russia!

Russia!

>> NARRATOR: James Jones documents the resurgence of old hatreds in the battle for Ukraine.

And later tonight, our unprecedented reporting from Syria continues... Uncovering how the United States is secretly arming and training the rebels.

>> Whatever is being done here is fully inadequate.

Without the United States, they're basically finished.

>> NARRATOR: Correspondent Muhammad Ali investigates.

Tonight, two new reports, one exclusive hour of Frontline.

>> NARRATOR: Over the past three months, Frontline's James Jones has been traveling to Ukraine.

He's found himself on both sides of the conflict, witnessing the resurgence of hatreds dating back decades between fellow Ukrainians.

>> (chanting): Russia!

Russia!

>> NARRATOR: Watching as the former Soviet country veers to the brink of civil war.

It's provoked one of the biggest confrontations between Russia and the United States since the Cold War.

>> JONES: It was late February when I came to the capital, Kiev, to Independence Square, where protesters were demanding the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Widely criticized as a corrupt leader, he had rejected a trade deal with the European Union in favor of one with his close ally, Russian president Vladimir Putin.

One of the first people I met was Dmytro Holubnychy.

The 16-year-old student told me what he'd experienced a few days before in the square still haunted him.

>> (translated): I can't sleep.

Whenever I try to sleep, smoke appears before my eyes and the image of that man being killed.

>> JONES: Dmytro told me how he'd come to the square to join the protestors.

Early on his first morning, fighting broke out with riot police.

(police shouting commands) Dmytro's father filmed what happened to him and his son.

>> I woke up at 6:00, and they told me we were under attack from the riot police.

I didn't expect my father to come, but he found me and he started filming it all.

I found a wooden shield and told my friend to follow me because he's smaller than me.

So we started moving forward with the shield and with Molotov cocktails, and this is how we came to Instytutska, to the very front line.

(gunfire) >> JONES: This was the deadliest fighting since the protests began in late November.

Dmytro said there were snipers on the rooftops.

(men shouting, gunshots) >> JONES: In the middle of the firefight, his mother unexpectedly called.

>> Mom called my dad and asked him what's up.

He said everything was okay and passed me the phone.

At that moment, I was sure we wouldn't make it out alive.

I saw many people killed.

I saw awful things there.

Everywhere we walked when we were carrying the wounded was covered in blood.

It was horrible.

(gunfire) (man groaning) >> JONES: When the shooting was over, President Yanukovych's forces had killed almost a hundred protesters.

The clashes galvanized Yanukovych's opponents and within days, he fled across the border to Russia.

He left a country bitterly divided between those Ukrainians who wanted close ties to Russia and nationalists like Dmytro who wanted to break free from Russia.

>> Our neighbors have never understood us.

Throughout history, they've always oppressed us Ukrainian people.

They will always do their best to capture us, to annex us, but the Ukrainians will never give up.

>> JONES: I noticed Dmytro's scarf displayed the face of an infamous Ukrainian nationalist, Stepan Bandera.

During the Second World War, Bandera initially sided with the Nazis when they attacked the Soviet Union.

He hoped they'd give Ukraine its independence.

But when the Nazis didn't give him what he wanted, Bandera's forces fought both the Nazis and the Soviets.

(marching drums playing) >> JONES: Russian TV only highlighted the Ukrainian nationalists' Nazi past.

>> Right Sector was one of the groups that led the fight against President Yanukovych's forces on the day of the shootings.

In the square I met one of a new generation of Ukrainians attracted to Right Sector's fervent nationalism and hatred of Russia, 17-year-old Oleg Demchuk.

>> I'm studying computer science in Kiev.

Yeah, I want to be a computer programmer.

We're all like that here.

>> JONES: Oleg had been involved in some of the most intense fighting that day in the square.

>> The guys from Right Sector said, "For Ukraine, long live free and glorious Ukraine," and they ran forward and we followed them running.

We were few in number and then a great many people started running behind us unarmed.

We ran at the riot police to scare them.

People weren't afraid anymore, but I can't deny I was scared.

Men kept falling in front of me, killed by bullets.

We stepped over their corpses.

>> JONES: The clashes in the square convinced him to go join Right Sector so he could fight if the Russians tried to invade.

>> Being a patriot is in my blood.

It's genetic.

I have to defend my motherland and fight for its great future.

You have to fight, and Right Sector is the organization to do it.

I'm ready to give my life for this struggle.

>> JONES: I followed Oleg to Right Sector's headquarters in Kiev, where he waited to sign up.

20 minutes later, he emerged as one of Right Sector's newest members.

A crowd spontaneously gathered around him.

>> My great-grandfather fought for Ukrainian independence.

During the Second World War, they fought against the Germans and the Soviets.

Their slogan was, "You will gain a free Ukraine, or you will die struggling for it."

Our war continues.

Not all enemies of Ukraine have been defeated.

>> JONES: I wanted to meet the leader of Right Sector.

Dmytro Yarosh is a hate figure on Russian television, and to many of the millions of Ukrainians who side with Russia, he is a neo-Nazi and the most feared man in the country.

He invited me into his heavily guarded headquarters.

>> We have a clear attitude towards non-Ukrainians in Ukraine: brotherly to those who stand with us in our struggle for statehood, tolerant of those who live here and do not oppose our fight, hostile to those who do everything to deprive us of our own country.

Putin has repeatedly said that there is no such country as Ukraine and he does everything to terminate our statehood completely.

Every empire is afraid of guerrilla war.

That's our way to victory.

>> JONES: It's words like this that stoke fears among many Russian-speaking Ukrainians and provoked Vladimir Putin.

He would later take over Crimea, a coveted southern region of Ukraine.

>> JONES: Putin's argument was that he was acting to protect the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine from persecution by Right Sector and other anti-Russian sympathizers.

>> JONES: I set out from Kiev, towards Eastern Ukraine, where Putin's words hold sway and where many people think of themselves as more Russian than Ukrainian.

Many of them were angered by the overthrow of President Yanukovych and alarmed by the rise of Right Sector.

I was headed to Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, just 25 miles from the Russian border.

>> (demonstrators chanting) >> JONES: I found a city in turmoil, with violence between groups supporting the new national government and those who wanted to break away and become part of Russia.

>> (chanting "Russia!")

>> JONES: Right Sector's anti-Russian sentiment was mirrored here by a hatred of America and yearning for the old Soviet Union.

Many were worried the new government in Kiev would persecute Russian speakers in the east.

>> JONES: In Kharkiv, I discovered Right Sector's biggest opponent, a militant group called Stronghold.

Many of its members want parts of Ukraine to break away and join Russia.

They're known as tough street fighters, and I was told that some have links to organized crime.

I tracked down one of Stronghold's leaders, who used the cover name Igor and only agreed to talk to me if I concealed his identity.

>> The nationalists took over the country illegally and began to oppress us.

We organized our own militia and we attacked the Kharkiv government building on the 1st of March.

>> JONES: I got hold of this footage showing Igor and his fellow separatists storming the government building, where Ukrainian nationalists opposed to Russia had been holed up.

Igor says he was joined by busloads of Russians who'd come across the border earlier that day.

But it turns out they were doing it for more than pure political beliefs.

Igor boasted that they were being paid to fight.

(gunfire) >> We were recruited as pro-Russian fighters.

We were paid $40 an hour to beat up the Kiev fascists.

Russia.

>> JONES: Russia denies it is orchestrating events inside Ukraine, but Igor said before operations like this, he and his colleagues met with Russian intelligence agents who were working in the east.

>> The supervisors are from the Russian military and intelligence agencies.

(chanting) >> JONES: Igor and his militia dragged people from the government building and paraded them on stage.

>> JONES: The young men feared they were about to be executed.

>> JONES: Days later, I watched Stronghold go on the offensive again.

(gunfire) Right Sector had just announced they'd set up an office in the center of Kharkiv.

When the fighters from Stronghold attacked, Right Sector shot two of them dead.

>> Russian television was soon broadcasting it as evidence of how Right Sector was terrorizing Russian speakers in the east of Ukraine.

>> JONES: This was the situation everyone feared: fighting between Right Sector and pro-Russia separatists like Stronghold.

The police arrived to hold the two sides apart and avoid more bloodshed.

The town's mayor, Gennady Kernes, pushed through the police line to try to end the stand-off.

(gunfire, men shouting) >> JONES: Hours later, Gennady Kernes made a deal to allow the Right Sector gunmen to walk away in the hope of restoring peace to the city.

The members of Stronghold were outraged.

>> JONES: A month later, the mayor was gunned down in the street and badly wounded.

In the coming days, separatists roamed Kharkiv, attacking anyone who supported a united Ukraine.

Similar violence was breaking out in cities across the east.

Vladimir Putin warned that he might have to send in his troops as he had done in Crimea.

>> JONES: As I left Ukraine in late March, the government's control over the east of the country was slipping away.

Two weeks ago, I was back in Kiev, where the new government was anguishing about whether to send its armed forces into the east.

They were fearful they could provoke a Russian invasion.

I'd arranged to meet a member of the provisional Ukrainian government.

Victoria Sumar had played a prominent role in the protests that had led to the overthrow of President Yanukovych and was now sitting on the National Security and Defense Council.

>> Even these people in the east who are armed don't understand they are puppets.

The question is who is pulling the strings.

The answer to me is completely clear.

It is Vladimir Putin.

When he understood he wasn't going to get the whole country as a present from President Yanukovych, he understood that he needed to split this country apart.

>> JONES: She showed me how armed men were taking over towns in the east.

She alleged that phone conversations intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence prove that Russia is behind much of the violence.

>> We know how it works.

First, a group of hired armed Russians occupy a building somewhere in East Ukraine, then they pass it to the locals who support them, training and instructing them.

We are constantly monitoring their phone conversations.

>> JONES: That's what happened in the major eastern city of Donetsk, where pro-Russia separatists had even declared their own state.

I bought a train ticket and headed there.

I'd been told that going by road would be too dangerous because gunmen guard the way into the city.

As I arrived, Ukrainian tanks were moving towards the city and a tense stand-off was developing between the separatists and the Ukrainian military.

In the main square, armed separatists were guarding their new government's headquarters.

Among the gunmen were many members of Stronghold.

They'd captured armored vehicles which flew the Russian flag.

Immediately, I heard they were preparing for a battle with Right Sector.

>> JONES: They're hostile to Western journalists, but I convinced the separatists to let me come inside their headquarters.

The United Nations has accused armed separatists of torture, killings and abductions.

I was introduced to the chairman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin.

Pushilin once worked for a Russian company involved in a notorious Ponzi-style scam.

He told me he was planning a referendum that would give his new republic legitimacy.

>> After the referendum is finished, we will quickly create structures of civil and military power.

Why military?

Because all military other than those created by the Donetsk People's Republic will be considered occupiers.

Should the aggressors step up their attacks, we will ask Russia to send peacekeeping troops into the region.

>> JONES: But it quickly became clear Pushilin wasn't the most important man in the room.

Sergei Zdrilyuk interrupted the interview with the chairman and introduced himself as a commander of the separatist forces.

I later discovered he once worked for Ukrainian intelligence, but was reportedly fired for working too closely with Russia.

He recently became a Russian citizen.

>> The Soviet Union was the most righteous country.

It was built on communism.

Then America told us we didn't have enough sex, drugs and rock and roll.

We've had all that, up to here.

>> JONES: Like many of the separatists, he was focused on the threat of Right Sector and its leader Dmytro Yarosh.

>> Yarosh is the enemy of Ukraine.

We are not the ones who started this civil war.

I am not worried about my safety.

If I get killed, I'll be supported by millions of my citizens.

We are ready to fight till the end.

Personally, I am going to risk it all.

I am not a politician.

I am a soldier.

>> JONES: I watched as the promised referendum took place under the gaze of masked gunmen.

The city's new leaders claimed that almost 90% of the voters wanted to break away from Ukraine.

The leaders then asked to become part of Russia.

President Putin didn't take them up on it.

But the message was clear: there is a strong pro-Putin force on the ground to keep the area tied to Russia for the foreseeable future.

I traveled out of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and headed back towards the west.

At a checkpoint marking the start of government-controlled territory, I found Oleg Demchuk, the 17-year-old who I'd first met signing up to join Right Sector.

>> When we were in Kramatorsk, we shot at them and frightened them.

Then we left, and now they are hunting for nationalists.

>> JONES: He told me he'd received military training at a Right Sector camp in the east and had already seen action in the eastern town of Kramatorsk.

He claimed they'd attacked a building there occupied by separatists.

>> The storming of the building started when we came out like this.

I had a knife in my right hand and my pistol was hidden.

We kicked in every door and threw in sound grenades.

We warned them, "Give up."

We cleared them out, took prisoners.

We killed a lot of them and they gave up.

Now we're waiting for a full-on attack on the separatists.

We're waiting for the election of the new president.

Then they'll let us, together with the army, free these towns from these bandits who are terrorizing the population of Eastern Ukraine.

>> JONES: I went back to see Oleg's leader, Right Sector's Dmytro Yarosh.

The U.N. has called for an investigation into the killing of pro-Russian demonstrators.

Still, Yarosh was planning new attacks on the separatists.

>> Our authorities are acting indecisively.

Two months ago it was possible to avoid this by taking certain people under control, containing the pro-Russian activity, so that none of this would happen.

Now the situation has picked up momentum.

Weapons have been delivered there, so they have the means to fight.

The situation is getting worse and worse.

(shouting, gunfire) >> JONES: In fact, on the day I saw him, Yarosh had sent his Right Sector fighters into the eastern town of Mariupol alongside the Ukrainian army.

They wanted to take back the police station from the pro-Russia separatists.

>> This morning we began the attack and three of our men have been killed, and some were wounded.

It's a full-blooded fight.

We've sent in armored vehicles.

>> JONES: They were accused of firing indiscriminately.

(shouting) 21 people were killed that day.

I visited the town soon after to find the army and Right Sector had retreated and the separatists were back in control.

The streets were deserted except for barricades and Molotov cocktails.

It seemed to me Right Sector and the separatists were playing a dangerous game, with both sides using each confrontation to justify more violence and death.

>> Let them come from Western Ukraine.

Let them come, let them come and they'll get what they deserve.

They just came and shot at us.

Why the (bleep) would they do that?

They said they wouldn't touch our region, but they did.

That's it and now our region has risen up.

And now you just try and stop us.

There's no damn way you'll stop us.

>> JONES: The protesters who'd come to Independence Square in late February finally got their wish this past weekend, electing a new president, Petro Poroshenko.

He's promised to unite a divided country.

But I'd seen with each death the hatreds deepen and the politicians lose ever more control of the gunmen on the ground.

Civil war isn't just a possibility.

In some places, it's already a reality.

>> NARRATOR: Coming up next on Frontline...

In Syria, a secret American program to help the opposition bring down the Assad regime.

>> Without the United States, they're basically finished.

(explosion) >> NARRATOR: "Arming the Rebels" begins right now.

>> NARRATOR: Journalist Muhammad Ali has been on the ground in Syria, reporting for Frontline.

From the beginning of the rebellion against dictator Bashar al-Assad, through the regime's bombing of the ancient city of Aleppo, and as the opposition splintered into warring factions, moderate rebels fighting Islamic radicals aligned with Al Qaeda.

>> Allahu Akbar!

>> NARRATOR: Now, with the Assad regime gaining ground again, he is returning to Syria to find out about a covert U.S. program to help the rebels.

A group of fighters from a moderate faction of the Free Syrian Army agreed to meet Muhammad on their way back from a secret training mission overseas.

They told him to wait in this field near the Syrian border with Turkey.

>> We are waiting here in this olive grove by the Turkish border for the newly trained group to cross over.

>> NARRATOR: He was not allowed to film the rebels' faces as they drove back to their camp in Idlib province.

These fighters are among the first to describe the secret arming and training they are receiving.

Their camp is in an area that has been under attack from the Assad regime.

The commander of the group, who only agreed to talk if we didn't use his name, says his is one of a few moderate rebel factions that have been getting covert support from the United States.

>> American agents got in touch with us.

They had researched us from the beginning.

They had intelligence on us about all our work.

They wanted to know our political leanings or whether we had any connections with extremist groups.

>> NARRATOR: The fighters get word there will be a nighttime meeting with their American contacts.

Muhammad rides with Ahmed, the battalion's supply officer.

>> NARRATOR: Ahmed won't let Muhammad come all the way to the meeting.

He says he doesn't want the American contacts to see him.

>> NARRATOR: For most of the war, the rebels have had to rely on capturing weapons from the battlefield itself.

They had shown Muhammad something they'd captured.

>> NARRATOR: The rebels are lucky.

The fighter jet didn't spot them this time.

>> NARRATOR: Muhammad has now heard from Ahmed, the driver who dropped him off.

>> Several hours have passed now.

The fighters are returning back from the Turkish border with a new shipment of ammunition.

>> NARRATOR: Back at the camp, the rebels unload their new munitions.

The next morning, they show Muhammad what they've received.

>> NARRATOR: Like most of the weapons used in the war, these U.S. supplies are Russian-made.

>> NARRATOR: The Obama administration has been reluctant to provide anything other than nonlethal support to the rebels, fearing weapons could make their way into the hands of extremists.

The rebels' arsenal is full of secondhand equipment.

>> This is a launcher we got last night from the army.

The problem is that we only have 14 missiles-- not enough to take it to a battle.

But we'll take it anyway and shoot the missiles till they're gone.

>> NARRATOR: They make weapons out of salvaged parts.

>> This is a locally made mortar.

It's a 120-caliber round.

We captured a destroyed tank from the army, so guys from our weapon-making team removed it from the tank.

We used this piece, cut it and put it on a reamer and turned it into this.

And this is how we make missiles.

>> NARRATOR: But in recent weeks, they say they have been receiving more sophisticated weapons.

It appears the Obama administration is now allowing select groups of rebels like them to receive U.S.-made anti-tank missiles, known as TOWs.

Many of the fighters have filmed themselves firing the missiles.

>> Allahu Akbar!

>> NARRATOR: In addition to receiving weapons, the commander says he and his men were taken on a long journey to a secret training camp.

>> They asked for a group of 80 or 90 fighters from our command and we headed towards the Turkish border.

>> NARRATOR: Based on their accounts, we retraced their journey across the border into Turkey.

After a 14-hour drive, they say they arrived in the Turkish capital of Ankara and were brought to a hotel.

They were kept inside and questioned by Americans, who would only say they were from "the military."

But the rebels believe they were from the CIA.

>> We met them for six to seven hours a day.

It was medical examinations, questions for each person individually.

Like, when did you join the uprising and what was your profession or military rank?

They had tracked our work and asked us to verify information about attacks we carried out, such as who was present and how many men were martyred.

Your responses have to match the entire group's.

>> NARRATOR: A week later, the rebels say they were surprised by what happened next.

>> We only found out where we were going to be trained on the last day in Ankara, when the Americans said goodbye and that "Tomorrow, we'll see you in Qatar."

>> NARRATOR: They were flown 1,500 miles away to Doha, the capital of Qatar, which is a key U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf.

>> We drove for about two, two and a half hours to reach the training ground.

It was close to the Saudi border.

We didn't know where we were because it was desert all around.

>> NARRATOR: Over the course of three weeks, they say they were trained by Americans at a base in the desert guarded by Qatari soldiers.

Like many of the rebels who were sent to Qatar, 21-year-old Hussein had never had any previous military training.

>> They trained us to ambush regime or enemy vehicles and cut off the road.

They also trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.

>> NARRATOR: The rebels were outfitted with brand-new uniforms and boots.

>> The Americans were warning the fighters not to tell this story at all.

And even at one point, they told them if in any case this story will be published, we will stop funding you or arming you.

>> NARRATOR: The CIA and the State Department declined to comment on the fighters' accounts of arming and training, though the Obama administration has said it plans to step up support to the rebels.

And there have been other reports the CIA is running covert training out of Jordan.

>> I don't think that there is any potential source of support for nationalist Syrian rebels beyond the United States.

Without the United States, they're basically finished.

>> NARRATOR: Ambassador Frederic Hof was one of President Obama's top advisors on Syria until late in 2012.

He says that whatever the U.S. is doing, either officially or covertly, is not enough.

>> You have the Assad regime prevailing and one of the big consequences of that is a mass terror campaign being directed against civilian populations that are not under the direct control of the regime.

You have artillery shelling, you have helicopters dropping these horrific barrel bombs on densely populated areas.

>> NARRATOR: The barrel bombs are filled with explosives and shrapnel.

>> The idea is to terrorize civilians, to try to convince them to turn against rebel fighters, to prevent the growth of any kind of local government in rebel areas.

>> They drop barrel bombs indiscriminately.

Kids die, women die, men die.

The majority of victims are civilians, not soldiers.

>> Planes are the thing that are killing people the most.

It's helping the regime advance.

>> NARRATOR: None of the weapons, including the newly supplied TOW anti-tank missiles, can stop the bombs.

>> We told them that the weapons you are giving us aren't the weapons we were hoping to receive.

We were hoping for better than this.

>> NARRATOR: The rebels say the arms and the training they're getting are no match for the regime's tactics.

>> We were told that we would get training in anti-aircraft missiles.

The weapons training I got I could have gotten here.

When I saw that there was no training in anti-aircraft weapons, my morale was destroyed.

>> NARRATOR: Late at night at the rebels' camp, a call comes over the radio.

There has been another attack from the skies.

>> NARRATOR: He is told the Assad regime has dropped chlorine gas on a town to the south.

We couldn't independently confirm the details of the attack, but witnesses would later post this video online.

Even though the rebels are only a short distance away, they say it's too dangerous for them to go out and help.

>> Syrian civilians are being subjected to a true abomination.

There is a mass homicide program going on in Syria.

So the question is how to stop it.

It's clear to me that whatever is being done here is fully inadequate.

>> NARRATOR: For now, the rebels are taking what they can get from the Americans, though they are increasingly frustrated.

>> The impression I got from their support is that they don't actually want us to defeat the regime, but they don't want the regime to defeat us either.

They told us they would train 30,000 to 40,000 men.

I asked them, "How can you ever train that many "if our training course is limited to 85 recruits at a time?"

In a year, you can only train a thousand recruits.

You would have to keep training men for 30 or 40 years.

Is the revolution going to go on for that long?

>> NARRATOR: Even still, he is sending another group of his fighters to be trained by the Americans in Qatar.

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline for more on both of these reports, including a closer look at President Obama's response to the two crises.

>> The future of Ukraine... >> And the options he has left.

>> Syrian nationalists.

>> More on Putin's end game in Ukraine.

And additional reporting on the war in Syria from our partners at McClatchy.

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