RUS ÖZEL ASKERİ ŞİRKETLERİ VE SURİYE İÇ SAVAŞI, 2013-2019

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 made a new term in international relations known to everyone. This term is Private Military Companies (PMC). Unlike Private Security Companies, PMCs, which are thought to be an effective tool especially for super powers to avoid the rules and sanctions of international law and achieve their foreign policy objectives by minimizing the obligation to be accountable to the public. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s led to a period of transition in the Russian Federation. In this period, the Russian Federation, which does not want to be more effective in International Relations and does not want to experience the problems after the Afghanistan Invasion of 1979. The most well-known example of this, and the event that made Russian private military companies wellknown, was the Syrian Civil War.The administration of the Russian Federation, which wants to be more effective in International Relations and regain its superpower status, has defined the Arab Spring, and the Color Revolutions that emerged in the former Soviet sphere of influence, as a direct threat to its national security. That's why Russia believed it was necessary to protect his former allies. In this context, Russia officially supported the Syrian government in 2015, upon its invitation, in order to prevent the Syrian government, one of its former allies, from being overthrown in the civil war that was a reflection of the Arab Spring on the country. However, Russia's military presence in Syria began before this date, in 2013, through the Slavonic Corps, the predecessor of the Wagner Group. In this study, the issue of Russia's involvement in the Syrian Civil War, which started with the Slavonic Corps and then continued with the Wagner Group, will be examined in the period between 2013 and 2019.