Hassan said that as the carnage spread, the Russian liaison officer contacted him again, asking for a pause to collect the dead and wounded — from an attack he had earlier denied was coming. The Kurdish commander saw this as a breach of faith.

“We don’t trust Russia anymore,” Hassan said. When a reporter asked about the irony of the Russian officer denying the attack and then asking for a truce, Hassan responded: “It’s funny that a superpower doesn’t know what their forces are conducting on the ground.”