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People gather in front of a makeshift memorial during a commemoration ceremony held to pay tribute to Wagner fighters, who were recently killed in Mali, in central Moscow, Russia, August 4, 2024.
Has the war in Ukraine spilled over into Mali?
On Sunday, Mali’s transitional military government cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine. The move came after Mali accused Kyiv of supplying intelligence to Tuareg separatists involved in a recent attack with an al-Qaida affiliate in the Sahel nation that reportedly resulted in dozens of casualties, including 84 Russian Wagner Group mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers.
Kyiv denies involvement, but a Malian government spokesperson said the move was catalyzed by comments from a Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson, Andriy Yusov, who recently said the armed groups involved in the July attack received the “necessary information” to conduct the attack.
The response and backdrop. On Monday, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry posted a statement on its website condemning Mali’s decision as “short-sighted and hasty,” saying no evidence has been provided to prove Kyiv’s role in the attack. The memo also said Ukraine reserved the right to take necessary actions toward the “unfriendly actions” by Mali.
The spat between Bamako and Kyiv once again raises questions regarding the extent to which the Ukraine-Russia war has spilled into Africa, following prior reports of Ukrainian special forces operating in Sudan to counter Wagner mercenaries. The Wagner Group has been active in Africa for years and was once estimated to have 50,000 fighters in Ukraine. Moscow has restructured and exerted greater control over Wagner ever since its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched a failed mutiny against Vladimir Putin in 2023 and died in a mysterious plane crash not long after.
This diplomatic feud also comes amid increasingly tense relations between the West, which is closely allied with Kyiv, and Sahel nations like Mali that have gone through coups in recent years.
Burkina Faso's junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore attends the first ordinary summit of heads of state and governments of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in Niamey, Niger July 6, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Coup bloc, Gaza school bombed, Ukraine in the dark, Tesla in China, Six days in Greece
3: Junta leaders from Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso announced Saturday they would form their own international bloc and “irrevocably” turn away from ECOWAS, just ahead of the latter’s summit on Sunday. Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré claimed the new alliance would stand up to Western influence in Africa, saying “These imperialists have only one cliché in mind: ‘Africa is the empire of slaves’.”
16: An Israeli attack on a UNRWA school in Gaza killed at least 16 people and wounded 50 on Saturday, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. UNRWA officials said at least 500 people have now been killed while sheltering in its facilities in Gaza, but Israel claims Hamas often uses the facilities as operating bases, essentially positioning civilians as human shields.
100,000: Russian airstrikes on power infrastructure in northern Ukraine left over 100,000 households in the dark on Saturday night. Targeting energy plants and transmission equipment has become a key strategy for Russia in its attempts to damage civilian morale in Ukraine, and the country’s energy utility says it has lost nine gigawatts of power capacity over the last three months — enough to power the entire Netherlands.
947,000: Tesla has officially been added to a list of approved government vehicle purchases in the Chinese province of Jiangsu, the only foreign-owned EV manufacturer on the list. However, the company manufactured over 947,000 cars at its Shanghai factory last year, most of which were sold in China.
6: Greece is experimenting with a six-day workweek, which allows firms that operate 24 hours a day to schedule employees to work up to eight hours at 40% overtime on the sixth day after a regular 40-hour workweek. They also have the option to spread 40 hours across six 6.5-hour work days. Workers are critical of the new rules, which seem to run against positive experiences some countries have had with four-day workweeks.FILE PHOTO: Russian officers from the Wagner Group are seen around Central African president Faustin-Archange Touadera, as they are part of the presidential security system during the referendum campaign to change the constitution and remove term limits, in Bangui, Central African Republic July 16, 2023.
Have gun, will travel? Russia wants you in Africa
Moscow has reportedly begun recruiting 20,000 soldiers to be deployed to at least five Russia-aligned African countries to replace Wagner Group mercenaries previously stationed there as Russia deepens its influence on the continent.
Just how many recruits “Africa Corps” can drum up is not clear (nor is why they named themselves after a Nazi unit, Afrika Korps, that got its arse kicked up and down Libya before surrendering en masse). Many Wagner fighters took contracts with the Ministry of Defense after an aborted revolt by former leader Yevgeny Prigozhin resulted in his death and the company’s disbandment, and those with experience in Africa may be rolled into the new unit. Then again, with Moscow trying to find 250,000 more men to throw into Ukraine, some recruits may figure that sweating it out in the Sahel beats getting shelled in a rat-infested trench.
The troops will provide security for coup leaders in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, as well as the House of Representatives government in Libya (not recognized by the United Nations) and the Central African Republic, which has drifted toward Moscow since 2016. In exchange, Russia will help themselves to Wagner’s former commercial fiefdom on the continent, including potentially lucrative mining operations producing gold, diamonds, and valuable industrial minerals.
But it’s a gamble: Wagner’s force in Africa was only ever a fraction of the size of this putative Africa Corps, and as a nominally private company, Moscow could shrug its shoulders when Wagner fighters committed atrocities. Now, the Russian flag would be undeniably flying over the murder, torture, and rape of civilians – but color us skeptical that the potential international opprobrium will hold them back one bit.Supporters of Burkina Faso's junta attend a rally to mark the one-year anniversary of the coup that brought Captain Ibrahim Traore to power in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on Sept. 29, 2023.
ECOWAS “officially” loses three junta-run states
Junta leaders in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have cut ties with their former French colonial overlords and kicked out French troops meant to fight terrorist groups threatening communities in the arid grasslands south of the Sahara Desert. In their place? Russian mercenaries, naturally, who have allegedly been complicit in a spate of atrocities over the last two years.
While the coups have done little to stave off the terrorists (the region suffered thousands of attacks last year), they’ve done a much better job scaring off troops from neighboring democracies. A threatened military intervention in Niger to be led by Nigeria last year amounted to nothing, and no one in the region is eager to put lives on the line now.
ECOWAS isn’t casting itself in the best light. When coup leaders in Niger invited an ECOWAS delegation to talks about the bloc’s sanctions in the capital Niamey on Friday, only Togo showed up. The other delegates said their plane got stuck in Abuja with mechanical issues.
There may be an odd silver lining in the disorganization, though. Since ECOWAS rules require states to file for withdrawal a year in advance, and no one seems to have bothered to put in an official notice, rejoining may not be such a technical hurdle should the political winds shift. We’ll be watching (but not holding our breath) to see whether Mali and Burkina Faso go ahead with elections scheduled for later this year.
Colonel Sidi Mohamed delivers a message as he stands with other Nigerien junta leaders.
New African alliance bolsters military junta in Niger
In what could prove to be a major stumbling block to restoring democratic rule in Niger, on Saturday its ruling junta signed a mutual defense pact with the governments of neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso.
The three countries have all seen their governments toppled by military coups since 2020. Niger’s fell most recently in June with the ouster of President Mohamed Bazoum, who remains under arrest on charges of “high treason.”
The new Alliance of Sahel States, as it is known, obliges members to defend each other should any of them come under attack. Not coincidentally perhaps, the pact was signed a week after Niger accused France of plotting to invade the country to restore Bazoum’s presidency.
France refuses to recognize Niger’s new military government, which has asked Paris to withdraw its troops and ambassador. There is fierce opposition to the presence of the former colonial power in the region: French troops have been removed from Mali and Burkina Faso, and Mali has asked the United Nations peacekeeping mission MINUSMA to leave its territory as well.
The new pact also represents a challenge to the power of ECOWAS, a West African economic and political union, of which all three countries are also members. ECOWAS itself had initially threatened military intervention to restore Bazoum, but has since dropped the idea.
In addition to mutual defense, the Alliance obliges its members to jointly tackle armed rebellions. All three nations face the threat of Islamic insurgency within their borders, and both Mali and Burkina Faso have relied on Russian mercenaries to help fight jihadists. The Alliance may now make it easier for Russia to expand its influence to Niger, which had been in discussions with the Wagner Group prior to the death of founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash on Aug. 23.
The last French convoy from Operation Barkhane, prepares to leave Gossi, Mali.
The UN’s dangerous withdrawal from Mali
The UN this week laid out a timeline for withdrawing peacekeeping troops from the West African state of Mali – a mission that UN chief António Guterres has called “unprecedented” because of the vast logistical and security challenges.
Roughly 13,000 UN peacekeepers and police – and 1,786 civilian staff – will be out of the country by Dec. 31, with their infrastructure handed over to Mali’s military government. The withdrawal of UN forces, who’ve been in the country for a decade, is a huge development in a state long plagued by ethnic strife, poverty, and Islamic insurgents.
Some quick background. The landlocked Sahelian country has been grappling with relentless violence since a military coup in 2012, which gave an opening to an expansive Islamic insurgency that’s since spilled over into neighboring countries.
Years of instability have given rise to multiple military coups since then, most recently in 2021. Last year, that junta expelled French soldiers deployed there to help quash jihadist violence. And most recently in June, Mali’s junta leaders – who have close ties to Russia’s Wagner Group, whose troops they invited to help keep things “under control” – ordered UN peacekeepers to leave.
The withdrawal is now a massive operation for the UN, which will try to evacuate troops and equipment from a hostile environment overrun by rival armed groups and terror cells. (Consider that the UN recently said that the Islamic State doubled the amount of territory it holds in less than a year.) Making matters worse, neighboring Niger, a transit country, recently underwent its own military coup and can’t be considered a safe passage.Candles are placed at a makeshift memorial near the former PMC Wagner Center, associated with the founder of the Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin, in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Wagner and Russia’s next moves
Russia has confirmed the identities of the 10 people who died in a plane crash last Wednesday northwest of Moscow. They included Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, as well key associates Dmitry Utkin and Valery Chekalov.
The question now turns to what happens to Wagner forces and the group’s clients, particularly African nations that are of strategic importance to Russia. Can President Vladimir Putin pick up where Prigozhin left off?
Experts note the personalized nature of Prigozhin’s leadership with both his fighters and his clients, as well as his ability to pull together “disparate entities and people.” Those entities included the leadership of Mali, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, and most recently, Niger. All are battling insurgent groups, including Islamic extremists, and in Mali, the militants have reportedly doubled their territorial control this past year. In Niger, the junta seeking to consolidate power after a recent coup had reached out to Wagner, but no relationship had yet been established.
Some predict that other Russian military operatives, such as Redut and Convoy, could fill the gap. Others note how the Russians have vowed to honor Wagner’s contracts in Mali and CAR. Meanwhile, the Republican Front, which is aligned with the leaders in CAR, confirmed its continued support for Russia and Wagner late last week. So it looks like Russia intends to continue leveraging Wagner in its bid to gain more influence on the continent.
It’s less clear what will happen in Burkina Faso and Niger, so we’ll be watching to see how junta leaders in those countries – and how Wagner’s men – respond to Prigozhin’s death.
picture of Planet Earth.
Ukraine’s war and the non-Western world
A new poll provides more evidence that Western and non-Western countries just don’t agree on how best to respond to the war in Ukraine.
Most Americans and Europeans say their governments should help Ukraine repel Russian invaders. Many say Russia’s threat extends beyond Ukraine. People and leaders in non-Western countries mainly want the war to end as quickly as possible, even if Ukraine must surrender some of its land to Russia to bring peace.
That’s not necessarily the message you might take from a recent vote on this subject in the UN General Assembly. On Feb. 24, the invasion’s one-year anniversary, 141 countries voted to condemn the invasion and to demand that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally” withdraw from Ukraine. Thirty-two countries abstained. Just six – Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Nicaragua, and Mali – voted with Russia against the motion.
But it’s one thing to denounce the invasion. It’s another to arm Ukraine and sanction Russia.
Among the 32 countries that abstained – a group led by China, India, South Africa, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and others – and even in states like Brazil and Turkey that voted with the majority, there is deep resistance to the Western approach to the war. The reasons vary by region and country, but their argument with the West can be grouped into three broad categories.
First, the US and Europe, they say, are prolonging this costly war at a time when world leaders must turn their attention and focus their nation’s resources on other urgent global threats.
As India’s President Narendra Modi said this week in his role as chair of this year’s G20 summit: “After years of progress, we are at risk today of moving back on the sustainable development goals. Many developing countries are struggling with unsustainable debts while trying to ensure food and energy security. They are also most affected by global warming caused by richer countries. This is why India's G20 presidency has tried to give a voice to the Global South.”
It’s noteworthy that Modi delivered these comments in English.
In other words, the longer the war in Ukraine continues, the longer world leaders will be distracted from other challenges and the fewer resources they’ll have left to meet them.
Second, what gives Europeans and Americans the right, some ask, to decide which wars are legitimate and who is guilty of imperialist behavior? The US says Russia launched an invasion under false pretenses, but memories of Americans hunting Iraq for weapons of mass destruction bolster charges of hypocrisy. Many Latin Americans remember that Cold War-era Western crusades against Russian Communism included support for brutal dictatorship in their countries. Many in Africa and the Middle East who live in states whose borders were drawn by Europeans reject European appeals to defend Ukraine against imperialism.
Third, many developing countries value the chance to buy Russian energy and food exports at bargain prices. Western refusal to buy Russian products has given many poorer states the chance to fuel their recovery in this way, and their governments are well aware that any bid to remove these products completely from markets would cut deeply into global supplies, driving world food and fuel prices to dangerous new highs. Many of these countries need post-COVID economic lifelines and continuing to do business with Russia, especially on newly favorable terms, can help.
Americans and Europeans can make counterarguments in all these areas, but leaders and poll respondents in non-Western countries continue to warn that Western governments can’t expect others to share the sacrifices they claim are needed to resolve Western problems.
Should Western governments worry? The US and Europe will continue to supply Ukraine and sanction Russia with or without help from others. But if Western leaders want to effectively isolate Russia, both economically and diplomatically, reluctance and resistance from non-Western countries will limit how much they can hope to accomplish and how quickly.