For the first time before long, the Russian Wagner PMC suffered significant casualties in Africa. Where exactly did it happen and why did the military unit fall into an ambush, whose fault it was and what needs to be done to keep such tragedies to a minimum?
The Wagner Group suffered casualties in fierce clashes with fighters in Mali, with an assault unit commander killed, sources close to PMC report. ‘From July 22 to July 27, 2024 soldiers of the Malian Armed Forces (FAM) and the members of Wagner’s 13th Assault Unit led by Commander Sergey Shevchenko, call sign Prud, were in a fierce fighting with the fighters from the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) and Al-Qaeda in the Sahel (JNIM) in the vicinity of the town of Tinzaouaten, a relevant statement reports.
Wagner noted that on the first day, Prud’s unit eliminated most of the Islamists and put others to flight. But then the insurgents took advantage of a sandstorm, could regroup and increase their headcount to a thousand. In response, Wagner’s command decided to move additional forces to support the 13th Assault Unit.
The fighters attempted another attack on July 25 but it was repulsed thanks to the coordinated efforts of Wagner fighters and the Malian military. ‘In the next two days, the insurgents intensified massive attacks with heavy weaponry, drones and SVBIEDs, which caused casualties among Wagner and FAM’, the PMC additionally noted. They quoted the latest radio message from Prud’s unit received on July 27 at 17:10 saying ‘It’s just three of us, we keep fighting’. Commander of the 13th Assault Unit Sergey Shevchenko, call sign Prud, was killed in the fighting.
No exact count of Wagner’s casualties are reported. Capturing of fifteen company’s personnel was reported, most of whom were redeemed within 24 hours. A few captured Malian soldiers were also set free. The losses count is to be confirmed, no official reports were released. Local authorities refrain from commenting on the incident. Now, what was it indeed?
For almost a year, the official Malian army supported by Wagner PMC has been successfully fighting against the separatist Tuaregs and a few multinational jihadist groups associated with Al-Qaeda in the country’s north.
Back in 2012, the Tuaregs living in the vast desert area in Northern Mali demanded independence and declared the creation of the Azawad State. They managed to invade a vast territory due to the weakness of the Malian leadership at the time.
In the circumstances, Mali requested assistance from the former parent state, France, which contributed military forces. However, the French input was highly inefficient. The Tuaregs occupied a big city of Kidal and sieged Timbuktu, with the conflict becoming cross-border (the Tuaregs’ geographic homeland is the neighbouring Algeria, the battles also took place at the border with Mauritania), and French convoys repeatedly fell into regular ambushes, the main tactical technique used by desert people. Finally, it led to a military coup in Mali in 2020, the repulsion of the French troops and the refocusing of Mali’s foreign policy on Russia.
First units of the Russian PMC appeared in Mali at that moment. Besides training the Malian military, they were directly involved in military action. The new government of Mali supported by the Russian PMC could promptly force the Tuaregs out from most of the territory they had occupied. In three months’ time, Wagner could free the city of Kidal, which the Tuaregs had held for over a decade and called their capital. Supported from Kidal, the state army and Wagner moved north to the desert taking control of major hubs with hardly any fighting. They used two roads, as other lands formally occupied by the Tuaregs were uninhabited desert.
On July 22, the state troops and Wagner triumphantly moved into I-n-Afarak settlement at the Algerian border. The Malian government even staged it in a certain way, as it boded well for a close defeat of the Tuaregs. Indeed, the area remaining under the separatists’ control at that moment was just a narrow desert strip along the Algerian border with the town of Tinzaouaten in it.
At the same time, with the taking of I-n-Afarak, another state military group supported by Wagners moved from the FAMA base in Tessalit directly to this town of Tinzaouaten. They assumed they would occupy it making this a victorious ending of the war with the Tuaregs and a symbol of the Malian government’s strength.
Unexpectedly though, the Tuaregs put up fierce resistance near Tinzaouaten. It appears the Malian command expected the taking of Tinzaouaten would be identical to the recent triumphant entry to I-n-Afarak. This is why there was no heavy weaponry in the convoy, but there were some bloggers. There were no minesweepers, the advanced screen, no support from the air, while the forecast predicted a sandstorm. So, the concept of this move was faulty from the beginning, but it was designed by the Malian command.
The sandstorm did break out closer to the first day’s night. It also became known there were thousands of Tuaregs pinned to the Algerian border without anything to lose. Algeria is also combating the same Tuaregs and jihadists and is not willing to let them to its land. Algeria started deploying troops closer to the border, but getting would have required crossing the whole Sahara from north to south.
On July 27, the Malian air forces could attack Tuaregs’ positions but closer to the third day of the fighting it became clear they would not be able to gain control Tinzaouaten in a snap. The Malian army and Wagner began to retreat via another road through ‘wadi’, the dry riverbed of the Tamassahart. As a result, the convoy was first hit by a big improvised explosive device (IED) and then got squeezed in the ‘wadi’ valley between a Tuareg unit and a group of jihadists, which appeared all of a sudden.
Usually the Tuaregs and jihadists do not cooperate: they are different peoples with different ideologies and goals. Moreover, they used to attack each other quite often before. But in this case, they, apparently, united against a common enemy, which the Malian intelligence could not timely predict.
Two Wagner’s choppers sent from Kidal were shot down or fell by themselves. The convoy was completely defeated. In the middle of the fight, the Malian units opened ‘friendly fire’, but even with the chaotic fighting around Wagners could possibly kill around 40 Azawad fighters before the retreat.
In other words, what happened was an outcome of the Malian command’s carelessness and complacency combined with a confluence of dramatic developments.
The PMC leadership was not involved in the planning of the operation at all.
What happened has once again posed the question, in which form Russia and the Sahel states, which have declared the creation of a Confederation recently, can cooperate in the war and political field. First of all, it is worth reminding that the years of war with the Islamic terrorism and, in some places with various separatist movements (national, tribal, religious), underpin all Sahel states’ issues.
This was the war causing a series of military coups, the expulsion of the French troops and sometimes the American troops, too. Later the overall anti-colonial trend followed, with the emerging leftist leanings of military officers taking over the power and partial refocusing on Russia in foreign policy and economy.
Central African Republic used to be the role model for the Sahel states for a long time, with the PMC at first and then a pool of Russian military advisers efficiently dealing with separatist and jihadist groups. The civil war is almost over in the Republic and lately Russian advisers have been supporting the integration of former fighters and separatist groups into a new peaceful life.
Things turned out to me more complex in the Sahel states. A full-fledge war, or, if you will, ‘counterterrorist operation’ in the challenging geographic and inter-ethnic context is taking place there.
Besides, the PMC is a private company after all. There are no seconded Russian advisers in Sahel Confederation states’ armies like it was at the Soviet time. It is also unclear how the Russian presence will be integrated into the emerging common military command of the Sahel Confederation.
The lack of an official status of the Russian presence with local governments causes risks of repeating the Tinzaouaten experience. The thing is, for instance, that specific internal features of the Sahel countries are not accounted for. Again, when the military and their leader Assimi Goita took the power, imperial aspirations enhanced in Mali, however strange it might sound in the African context.
These are about the restoration of the medieval Mali Empire, which causes tensions in their relations with their Arabic speaking neighbours – Algiers and Mauritania.
As a matter of fact, this ideological trend was behind the attempt to deal with the Tuareg separatists with just two military convoys in three days. If at the time this decision was being made there had been a Russian military adviser near the Malian comrades, most surely, there would have been no ‘Tinzaouaten raid’ at all. Without this, the PMC turned out to be hostage to the local authorities’ political ambitions.
The main problem of the Sahel states today is the war with Jihadism and separatism. Russian special armed forces could help address this problem. And they are already doing it, by the way. However, it is highly recommended the Sahel Confederation put an official counter-terrorist operation in place. This, in turn, would help build formal grounds for Russia’s military assistance like it successfully worked in Central Africa before. When this is the case, there will be fewer casualties in the far reaches.