by OWEN MATTHEWS
IN THE DESERT OF EASTERN SYRIA, NOT FAR FROM A town called Deir ez-Zor, there’s reportedly a pile of stones surrounding a wooden board, with an Orthodox cross and an inscription burned into the wood: “2017. To the eternal memory of the warriors killed and missing in the SAR [Syrian Arab Republic].” The stone cairn is decorated with a machine gun belt, a large-caliber bullet and a Russian army helmet. The dead are identified only by their wartime nicknames: Warrior, Executioner, Scorpion, Nightingale. All were purportedly Russian mercenaries who perished in the war in Syria. But their real names don’t appear on any death toll. Russia will never acknowledge their apparent role in the conflict. For Moscow’s secret soldiers, that pile of stones may be as close as they will ever get to official recognition.