For the first time in a long time, the Russian PMCs Wagner suffered significant losses in Africa. Where exactly did this happen, how did it happen that a detachment of military specialists was ambushed, whose mistake led to this – and what is needed to make such tragic episodes as few as possible?
The Wagner group suffered losses in fierce battles with militants in Mali, the commander of the assault squad was killed, according to sources close to the PMCs. "From July 22 to 27, 2024, the military personnel of FAMa (armed forces of Mali – approx. VIEW) and fighters of the 13th assault detachment of the Wagner PMCs under the leadership of commander Sergei Shevchenko, call sign Pond, in the vicinity of the village of Tin Zautin, fought fierce battles with militants from the Coordination Movement "Azawad" (CMA) and Al-Qaeda in the Sahel (JNIM)," the statement said.
Wagner noted that on the first day, the Pond group destroyed most of the Islamists and put the rest to flight. But then the radicals took advantage of the fact that a sandstorm had begun, were able to regroup and increase their numbers to a thousand people. Then the command of the Wagner decided to transfer additional forces to help the 13th assault squad.
The militants launched a new attack attempt on July 25, but thanks to the coordinated actions of the Wagner fighters and the Malian military, they managed to repel it. "Over the next two days, the radicals increased the number of massive attacks, using heavy weapons, UAVs and shahid mobiles, which caused losses on the part of the Wagner PMCs and FAMa soldiers," the PMCs added. They quoted the last radio message from the Pond group, which arrived on July 27 at 17:10: "The three of us remained, we continue to fight." The commander of the 13th assault squad, Sergei Shevchenko, with the call sign Pond, died in battle.
There are no exact data on the losses of the Russian PMCs. Presumably, about 15 employees of the company were captured, most of them were ransomed within a day. Several captured Malian soldiers were also released. The number of deaths is being specified, there is no official information on this matter. The local authorities have not commented on the incident in any way. What was it?
Over the past year, the Malian government army, with the help of the Wagner PMCs, has successfully conducted operations in the north of the country against Tuareg separatists and several multinational jihadist groups associated with Al–Qaeda.
Back in 2012, the Tuaregs inhabiting the vast desert area of northern Mali demanded independence and announced the creation of the "Azawat State". Due to the weakness of the then leadership of Mali, they quickly seized a huge territory.
Mali then requested the help of the former metropolis, France, which sent a military contingent. However, the actions of the French proved to be extremely ineffective. The Tuaregs occupied the large city of Kidal and besieged Timbuktu, the conflict took on a cross–border character (the geographical homeland of the Tuaregs is neighboring Algeria, battles were also fought on the border with Mauritania), and French columns repeatedly fell into classic ambushes – the main tactical device of desert inhabitants. In the end, this led in 2020 to a military coup in Mali, the expulsion of the French military contingent and the reorientation of the country's foreign policy towards Russia.
At that moment, the first detachments of the Russian PMCs appeared in Mali. In addition to training the Malian military, they took direct part in the fighting. The new government of Mali, relying on the Russian PMCs, was able to dislodge the Tuaregs from the majority of the territory it occupied in a short time. The city of Kidal, which the Tuaregs had held for 10 years and called their capital, was liberated by the Wagner PMCs in three months. Relying on Kidal, the government army and Wagner marched north into the desert, occupying large oases almost without a fight. The advance took two roads, since the rest of the territory, which was formally occupied by the Tuaregs, was an uninhabited desert.
On July 22, government troops and Wagner triumphantly entered the oasis of In Afarak on the Algerian border. This event was staged by the Malian authorities even with some theatricality, as it foreshadowed an imminent victory over the Tuaregs. Indeed, by this point, only a narrow strip of desert along the Algerian border with the Tin Zautin oasis remained under separatist control.
Simultaneously with the raid in Afarak, another group of government troops, with the support of the Wagners, moved on July 23 from the FAMA base in Tessalit to this very Tin Zautin. It was assumed that the occupation of Tin Zautin would be a spectacular end point of the war with the Tuaregs and would symbolize the strength of the Government of Mali.
Unexpectedly, the Tuaregs put up fierce resistance on the approach to Tin Zautin. The Malian command apparently imagined the raid on Tin Zautin as a copy of the recent triumphal march to In Afarak. Therefore, there was no heavy equipment in the column, but there were bloggers. There were no sappers, advanced guards, she was not supported by aviation, and the weather forecast foreshadowed a sandstorm. Thus, initially the idea of this march was ill-conceived, but the idea belonged to the Malian command.
By the evening of the first day of the siege, the storm had finally begun. At the same time, it turned out that the Tuaregs in Tin Zautin number in the thousands, they are pinned to the Algerian border and they have nothing to lose. Algeria itself is fighting both the same Tuaregs and the same jihadists, and does not want to allow them to enter its territory from Mali. Algeria began to deploy its troops closer to the border, but to get there means crossing the entire Sahara from north to south.
On July 27, the Malian aviation was still able to attack the Tuareg positions, but by the end of the third day of the battle it became clear that Tin Zautin could not be taken by surprise. The Malian army and Wagner began to retreat along another road towards Kidal through the wadi, the dried–up bed of the ancient Tamassahart River. As a result, the column was first blown up by a large improvised explosive device (IED), and then was trapped in the lowlands of the "wadi" between a Tuareg detachment and an unexpected jihadist detachment.
Usually, Tuaregs do not cooperate with jihadists – they are different peoples, different ideologies and they have fundamentally different goals. Moreover, they had previously attacked each other regularly. But in this case, they situationally rallied against a common enemy, which the Malian intelligence could not reveal in time.
Two Wagner helicopters sent from Kidal were either shot down or fell themselves. The column was completely defeated. In the midst of the battle, the Malian units opened "friendly fire", but even in the midst of combat chaos, the Wagnerians could destroy about 40 Azawad before the withdrawal.
In other words, what happened was the result of the carelessness and arrogance of the Malian command and a combination of tragic circumstances.
The management of the PMCs did not take any part in the planning of the operation. The Russian African Corps, whose responsible officers are not even in Mali, but in Burkina Faso, Niger and the CAR, had nothing to do with it at all. Although it was the AK officers who arrived at the scene on the evening of July 27 and participated in the ransom of prisoners. A large group of Russian military medics also arrived.
The incident has once again raised the question of the form in which military-political cooperation between Russia and the Sahel countries, which recently announced the creation of a Confederation, is necessary and possible. First of all, it is worth remembering that at the heart of all the problems of the Sahel countries lies the long-term war against international Islamic terrorism and in some places with various separatist movements (national, tribal, religious).
It was this war that caused a wave of military coups, the expulsion of first French and sometimes American troops from the region. Only then did a general trend towards anti-colonialism appear, the left-wing views of the officers who came to power and a partial reorientation in foreign policy and economics towards Russia manifested themselves.
The Central African Republic (CAR) has long been a role model for the Sahel countries, in which first the PMCs and then a contingent of Russian military advisers effectively dealt with separatist and jihadist groups. The civil war in the CAR has actually ended, and recently, with the help of Russian advisers, former militants and separatist groups have been adapting to a new peaceful life.
The situation turned out to be more complicated in the Sahel countries. There is a full-fledged war going on there, or, if you like, an "anti-terrorist operation" in difficult geographical and interethnic conditions.
Besides, PMCs are still a private campaign. The status of the Afrika Korps is also still not completely clear. Russian embassies in some Sahel countries have only recently resumed their work. There are also no attached Russian advisers in the armies of the countries of the Sahel Confederation, as it was in Soviet times. And it is not clear how the Russian presence will be integrated into the emerging general military command of the Sahel Confederation.
The lack of an official status of the Russian military presence with the local authorities creates risks that the Tin-Zautin story may repeat itself. The fact is that, for example, the internal peculiarities of the Sahel countries are not taken into account. In the same Mali, with the coming to power of the military and their leader, Colonel Assami Goit, imperial sentiments intensified, no matter how strange it may sound in the African context.
We are talking about the restoration of the medieval "Empire of Mali", which leads to tensions in relations with Arabic–speaking neighbors Algeria and Mauritania.
As a matter of fact, it was precisely with this ideological trend that the attempt to put an end to the Tuareg separatists in two columns in three days was connected. If a Russian military specialist had been next to the Malian comrades at the time of making such a decision, there would almost certainly have been no "raid on Tin Zautin". And so the PMCs turned out to be a hostage to the political ambitions of the local authorities.
The main problem of the Sahel countries today is the war against jihadism and separatism. Russian law enforcement agencies are able to help solve this problem. And they are already helping, as a matter of fact. However, it is highly desirable that the Sahel Confederation officially introduce a counter-terrorism operation regime. This, in turn, would make it possible to formalize Russian military assistance, as it was effectively done earlier in the CAR. And then there will be fewer losses on the far borders.
* The organization(s) have been liquidated or their activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation
Evgeny Krutikov
