Ukraine’s support for west African rebels backfires

After the Kremlin-backed Wagner mercenary group suffered its recent and heaviest African defeat when dozens of Russians were killed in an ambush in July, Ukraine’s military intelligence service was quick to claim some credit.
That boast now looks closer to a symbolic defeat for Kyiv after the juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger wrote to the United Nations Security Council demanding it denounce Ukraine’s alleged support of rebel groups in the Sahel region of west Africa where Wagner is deployed.
Mali cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine earlier this month over comments by a spokesman for GUR, the Ukrainian military intelligence service, which claimed a separatist group in northern Mali had received “not only intelligence” for the attack.
Days later, Niger’s military government did the same in solidarity with its neighbour, accusing Ukraine of supporting “international terrorism” in the ambush by Tuareg rebels who claimed to have killed at least 84 Russians and 47 Malian soldiers.
In their letter to the UN Security Council, the foreign affairs ministers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso asked it to “take responsibility” for Ukraine’s actions and to prevent “subversive acts” that threaten regional and continental stability.
The three states have shunned their traditional western and African regional allies since their juntas took power since 2020, pivoting to Moscow for military support with the jihadist insurgency that has swept the Sahel.
Diplomats confirmed that the letter, which was posted on the X account of a grouping called the Alliance of Sahel States formed by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, was circulated to the 15-member council.
Ukraine has not commented on the letter, but has previously said there was no evidence of its role in supporting rebels in Mali. This contradicts Andriy Yusov, the GUR spokesman, who had claimed the agency’s part in “a successful operation against Russian war criminals”.
Paul Melly, an Africa specialist at Chatham House, said “for many Africans, this was yet another case of outside powers exploiting the continent as a bloody playing field for their own rivalries”.
In the last year, Ukrainian special forces were reportedly also involved in operations in Sudan against Wagner fighters as part of the GUR’s stated ambition to take the fight to Russia beyond its borders.
This strategy is testing Ukraine’s attempts to win broader support on the continent and the global south generally for its own fight against Moscow’s aggression. Many African nations have taken neutral positions in the war. In a UN General Assembly vote shortly after the invasion in February 2022, only 28 of the 54 African member states voted to condemn it.
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, recently made his fourth diplomatic tour to the continent. More will be needed. West Africa’s regional bloc, Ecowas — which has condemned the military take overs in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali — aimed its own rebuke at Ukraine after the incident in Mali.
Ecowas declared its “firm disapproval and firm condemnation of any outside interference in the region which could constitute a threat to peace and security in West Africa and any attempt aiming to draw the region into current geopolitical confrontations”.