This undated photograph offered by the French navy reveals three Russian mercenaries in northern Mali. | Picture credit score: AP
Russian mercenary group Wagner stated on Monday it had suffered heavy losses, together with a commander, throughout battles with separatist forces in northeastern Mali final week.
The West African nation, which has been actively battling rebel and separatist forces within the north for greater than a decade, turned to Wagner for help after a navy junta got here to energy in 2020.
From July 22 to 27, Malian armed forces and fighters from Wagner’s thirteenth assault squadron “fought fierce battles” towards a coalition of Tuareg separatist forces and jihadist militants, in accordance with a press release on Razgruzka Vagnera, a Telegram channel linked to Wagner’s management.
For 2 days, the separatists “elevated the variety of large assaults, utilizing heavy weapons, drones and SVBIED (suicide automobile bombs), which induced losses to Wagner and troopers of the Malian military,” the assertion stated.
The commander of the thirteenth assault squadron, Sergei “Prud” Shevchenko, was killed in motion, he added, and the ultimate message from his group was: “There are three of us left. We’re nonetheless combating.”
A spokesman for the CSP-DPA alliance, a coalition that features primarily Tuareg separatist forces, claimed victory over the Malian military and Wagner on Sunday.
Mali’s navy leaders, who seized energy in a coup, have made it their acknowledged precedence to retake your complete nation from separatist and jihadist forces, significantly Kidal, a pro-independence stronghold within the north.