The military police of the Russian Armed Forces began patrolling the territory in the Manbij area in the Syrian province of Aleppo near the Turkish border, the police’s spokesman Yusup Mamatov told reporters.
After the United States decided to withdraw troops from Syria, Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) appealed to Damascus to establish control over the areas they had previously occupied, including Manbij, and to protect them from the Turkish invasion. In late December, Syrian troops entered Manbij. In early January, Syrian Defence Ministry reported that about 400 YPG fighters left Manbij and were heading toward the eastern bank of Euphrates to focus on fighting the Daesh* terrorist group.