Ukrainian special forces are reportedly operating in Sudan in support of the country’s army against Russian Wagner mercenaries aligned with the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to a video released on Monday.
The Kyiv Post released a short film which it said came from sources within Ukrainian military intelligence, responsible for covert operations, showing a captured Russian prisoner being interrogated alongside two African men.
The Russian soldier says he is from “PMC Wagner” and came into Sudan from Central African Republic, where fighters from the Russian group are based, “to overthrow the local government” with a force of about 100.
The location and content of the video have not been independently verified.
However, it has surfaced following months of speculation that Ukrainian forces are operating in Sudan as part of an emerging campaign by Kyiv to strike at Russian interests far beyond the Ukraine war’s frontlines.
Previous videos have circulated showing Ukrainian-style kamikaze drone strikes against RSF forces – leading to reports that have tentatively concluded that the operations were conducted by special forces from Kyiv – and a pale-skinned sniper operating in Sudan, who has been described as Ukrainian on social media.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, met Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, at Ireland’s Shannon airport in September. “We discussed our common security challenges, namely the activities of illegal armed groups financed by Russia,” the Ukrainian leader said at the time.
Ukraine has also been pursuing a strategy of conducting special forces operations inside Russia in an attempt to score propaganda victories against its enemy and show that nowhere is necessarily safe from its forces – although they are rarely militarily significant.
Earlier this year, Ukraine released a video said to show special forces commandos conducting a raid inside Russia’s southern Belgorod region, forcing local officials to relocate families for their safety.
Sudan’s army has been fighting the RSF since last spring. Numerous reports have said the rebels are being supported by Wagner, reconstituted under closer control from Moscow since the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Another part of the latest video is said to show members of Ukraine’s special forces searching a military vehicle at night, removing a Wagner card from a soldier apparently slumped dead in a seat. But the imagery is too dark and blurred to be definitive.
