Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has claimed it was involved in an ambush that killed fighters from Russia’s Wagner group in the west African nation of Mali, thousands of miles away from the frontline in Ukraine.
A Telegram channel linked to the Wagner leadership on Monday admitted the group had suffered heavy losses during fighting in Mali last week.
It said Wagner and the Malian armed forces had “fought fierce battles” over a five-day period against a coalition of Tuareg separatist forces and jihadi groups, who had used heavy weapons, drones and suicide bombers. Numerous Wagner fighters, including a commander, Sergei Shevchenko, were killed, the channel said.
Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, said on Monday that “the rebels received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals”.
Yusov did not say whether Ukrainian military personnel were involved in the fighting or were present in the country. He said the agency “won’t discuss the details at the moment, but there will be more to come”.
The Mali government, which has been fighting various insurgencies in the north of the country for more than a decade, requested help from Wagner after a military junta took power in 2020.
In May last year, the US imposed sanctions on the head of Wagner in Mali, accusing the group of using its operation there as a conduit for military equipment for the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces are believed to be active in Sudan, another place where Wagner troops have been heavily involved in fighting, in a further sign that Kyiv’s fight with Moscow has taken on a global dimension.
The Wagner group was set up by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an old acquaintance of Vladimir Putin who built up the fighting force as a way for Moscow to intervene in conflicts without official use of the Russian military.
It has carried out much of the most fierce fighting in Ukraine, often using former prisoners who were pardoned in exchange for a stint on the frontline.
The group is also active across Africa, and continues to be so even after Prigozhin was disgraced following a failed coup attempt last summer. He later died after an explosion onboard his plane, widely believed to have been ordered by the Kremlin, but Wagner’s influence in Africa remains.
“For Moscow, the African countries where Wagner is present is just a zone of interest that allows it to get hold of resources – gold, diamonds, gas and oil – and the money goes to finance Russian aggression,” said Serhii Kuzan, director of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center in Kyiv, explaining why Ukraine might want to target Wagner in Africa.
He added that the raids had additional benefits for Kyiv: “liquidating” some of the most experienced Wagner fighters and lowering the overall military potential of the group, and also exacting revenge for war crimes in Ukraine.
“A significant part of the destroyed fighters got military experience in Ukraine, where they carried out hundreds or thousands of war crimes … these crimes should be punished, and Russian war criminals should know that they will never be safe,” said Kuzan.
• This article was amended on 31 July 2024 to remove a reference to a photograph published by the Kyiv Post purporting to show Malian rebels holding a Ukrainian flag, which could not be independently verified.
