In July, Wagner mercenaries were killed in Mali during an attack by rebel fighters amid a desert sandstorm. Northern Tuareg rebels in Mali claimed responsibility, stating they had killed at least 84 Russian Wagner mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers in several days of intense fighting. The Wagner group did not disclose the number of its troops lost in the conflict.
Interviews with their families and a review of social media data have shown that among the casualties were Russian war veterans who had previously survived deployments in Ukraine, Libya, and Syria, Reuters reported.
The loss of such experienced fighters exposes dangers faced by Russian mercenary forces working for military juntas, which are struggling to contain separatists and powerful offshoots of Islamic State and Al Qaeda across the arid Sahel region in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
The defeat in Mali casts doubt on whether Moscow, which has acknowledged funding Wagner and has integrated many of its fighters into a defence ministry force, can outperform the Western and U.N. troops recently expelled by the region’s military juntas, according to six officials and experts familiar with the area.
By cross-referencing publicly available information with online posts from relatives and fighters, and using facial recognition software to analyze battlefield footage verified by Reuters, the news agency identified 23 fighters missing in action and two others taken captive by Tuareg rebels after the ambush near Tinzaouaten, a town close to the Algerian border.
Several of the men had survived the siege of Bakhmut in Ukraine, which Wagner’s late founder Yevgeny Prigozhin called a “meat grinder.” Others had served in Libya, Syria and elsewhere. Some were former Russian soldiers, at least one of whom had retired after a full-length army career.
In Africa, Wagner emerged in Sudan in 2017 as the deniable face of Russian operations. Its enterprises soon ranged from protecting African coup leaders to gold mining and fighting jihadists. Wagner is also active in Central African Republic. It first appeared in Mali in late 2021.
