A Wagner Group commander has appealed to Russia’s defense ministry for help after at least 80 mercenaries and Malian government troops were killed during an ambush by Tuareg rebels, it has been reported.
Social media footage purportedly showed Wagner and Malian personnel killed on the outskirts of Tinzawaten village near Mali’s border with Algeria in the north of the former French colony. More than a dozen were kidnapped during the attack.
The Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD) rebel movement, which opposes the government in Bamako, said that it had “routed the entire column of Malian army and Russian mercenaries.”
A West Africa expert has told Newsweek, that in response, Mali’s government could conduct a large raid in the coming days.
Wagner-linked Telegram channel Voenkor Kotenok released a statement Monday that said the ambush followed fierce fighting with the Tuareg rebels and members of jihadist group JNIM. Wagner fended them off at first but a sandstorm allowed the Tuaregs to regroup and step up their attacks using heavy weapons, drones and improvised explosive devices, the post said.
Following the ambush, a Wagner commander who used to serve in the 13th assault unit of the Russian mercenary group told his 208,000 followers on Telegram that he had issued a direct plea to Moscow for help.
“According to my information, more than 80 people were killed and over 15 are in captivity from this operation,” said the post under his call sign Rusich. “This concerns our Russian comrades and military personnel who represent Russian interests.”
Administrator of the prominent military Telegram channel “Grey Zone” Nikita Fedyanin was reportedly killed and a Wagner Mi-24 helicopter downed in the ambush.
Rusich said that he had contacted Russia’s special forces as well as its Africa Corps—the group created to bring the Russian mercenaries under the control of the Kremlin following the death of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“I simply ask for help from the Ministry of Defense and from the government of the Motherland for help,” he said. He has left the company but said that he would be prepared to charter a plane to Mali “to help out our guys.”
“The attack is very significant and shows increased capabilities of the Tuaregs,” said Olayinka Ajala, an expert on West Africa and senior lecturer in politics and international relations at Leeds Beckett University in England.
Ajala said there were unconfirmed reports that the Tuaregs were now being supported by the French military “and they are building alliances with al-Qaeda related forces.”
“This is similar to what happened in 2012 with the Tuaregs,” he told Newsweek, “I reckon there will be large air raids in the area in the next few days with civilian casualties.”
As well as playing a role in Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Wagner provides the Kremlin with a footprint in Africa where it is said to offer protection to governments against coup threats in return for access to resources.
Independent Telegram channel Sirena said Wagner has been in Mali since 2021 when a military junta came to power in the country, which the group helped to keep in power, although the country’s authorities said they were “instructors” who train the military.
It also said the ambush on the weekend may have inflicted the highest number of casualties on Wagner in a single engagement since 2018 when the U.S. Air Force fired on the group in Syria.
• Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK.