Russia has suffered its worst defeat since the start of its journey in Mali

This Saturday Russia suffered its worst blow in Africa since the first boots of the Wagner Group (today reorganized under the nickname of Africa Korps) stepped into the Sahara. Videos spread on social networks show dozens of Russian and Malian bodies scattered on the sand, some half naked, most dead, and from time to time one of the survivors is grabbed by the hair and They force them to shout “Russia, no!” Mali, no! Free, yes!”And the unfortunate man’s eyes grow small with the terror that grips him.

This story began in the summer of 2023, when Colonel Assimi Goita, the leader of the military junta that has ruled Mali since the May 2021 coup, said, decided to reactivate the war against independence groups in the north of the country. These independentists want the secession of a dream nation they call Azawad that would occupy 70% of Mali’s current territory. For months from August to October, joint Russian and Malian forces advanced into the desert until reaching Kidal, the capital of independencewhich they took after a series of battles that ended with the hoisting of the flag of the Russian mercenary group over the city. But the capture of Kidal, while historic, was not the end of the conflict. Independence groups, made up of nomads and nomadic communities, immediately took the war to the desert, where lightning attacks and ambushes from nowhere, sometimes in conjunction with armed jihad factions, ravaged the region.

The Malians and the Russians, following an ancient tradition shared by both peoples, initiated a policy of genocide against the civilian population and carried it out in the most violent way possible: For nearly a year now, graphic evidence and testimony has been provided of massacres of civilians, civilians being beheaded and dismembered… Recently, a video was also released showing a Malian soldier eating Tuareg in a practice of cannibalism, further fuelling the hatred of independence supporters against Bamako’s forces.

The catastrophe occurred after two days of intense fighting in the Tinzaouaten sector, very close to the Algerian border, between joint Russian and Malian forces and members of the CSP (Permanent Strategic Cadre). A group of pro-independence organizations Formed in Rome in 2021 through the Italian NGO Ara Pacis (Let the one who wants to see see) and which has been fighting the Malian government for months. Two days of fighting whose intensity caused Algeria to deploy troops on its side of the border to prevent the attack from affecting its territory. Two days of intense fighting, until the government forces suffered heavy losses (the video with dozens of corpses mentioned earlier corresponds to this moment) forced them to retreat to the 300 kilometers that separated them from Kidal.

One has to consider that 300 kilometers in the desert cannot be covered in two hours. Rather, it can take fifteen to twenty hours without stopping if you are lucky. This was not a quick or safe return; for, Survivors of the Tinzaouaten disaster were ambushed by JNIM forces (a jihadist group affiliated with Al Qaeda) on their return to Kidal and were exterminated in the process. None of the group that set out from Kidal towards the Algerian border last week survived… unless they were taken prisoner. And this has been Russia’s biggest disaster since it began its journey into the Sahel.

Those killed on the Russian side also included two relevant personalities. One of them will be Anton Elizarov, the head of Africa Korps, who was a confidant of Yevgeny Prigozhin when the director of the Wagner Group was still alive. The other will be Nikita “Bely” Fedyanin, the administrator of the Wagnerite Telegram channel The Grey Zone.Both defeats represent a hard blow to Russian leadership in Africa, and deepen the trauma already suffered.

In Telegram groups belonging to the Wagner Group, organizing a quick rescue to try to get their colleagues out of there has already begun. The Malian military junta, unable to accept their defeat In front of the population, has published a statement in which it is assured that “the violent fight against the coalition of terrorists (…) and smugglers of all kinds continues.” He omits all the information about that massacre, but expresses with cautious pride that “FAMA air means successfully destroyed five terrorist targets,” for which Citizens were urged to leave the area to avoid accidental casualties. His final phrase, which is common in his communications, conveys strength and determination: “United, we will prevail.”

Because no one in the Malian government doubts that what happened in Tinzaouaten and during the subsequent withdrawal was a catastrophe. Bad news. Dozens of regular Malian soldiers, including Russians, have been killed, while armed jihadists celebrate victory amid sand and silence. Bad news because it is a resounding victory for the drug traffickers, the destabilizing agents of the Sahel and the thieves of progress.

The CSP also issued a statement with a triumphant tone and reported that “a unit in charge of protecting unarmed civilians defeated an entire column of the Malian army and Wagner’s Russian mercenaries who had left Kidal and were roaming, as usual, spreading terror throughout the region, having had their share in innocent deaths and ruin.” They celebrate inflicting dozens of casualties on the enemy, in addition to destroying or recovering an unknown number of armored vehicles, along with other war materials. And they indicate that “this battle is only the prelude and demonstration of their firm will to expel all enemies from the region”, while they call on the rest of the independence forces to join the CSP and form a common front based on this victory.

The statement concludes: “csp-dpa I condemn the silence of the States of the subregion and the entire international community regarding the genocide and serious human rights violations committed against the population of Azawad by Wagner’s Russian mercenaries and the Malian army.

A relevant detail that has been verified in the videos where Russian prisoners appear would be the ethnic characteristics of the Wagner/Afrika Korps combatants. Each of the survivors had brown hair and a scant beard. There was not a single blond. Only among the corpses can we see a man with a shaved and apparently blonde head, although it may be the desert dust that has “colored” his hair, impossible to determine clearly due to the poor quality of the image. CSP separatists claim that many of the mercenaries were recruited in Chechnya, the commander of the column was a Chechen. And months ago it was rumoured that many of the Russian fighters in northern Mali were actually Syrian mercenaries.

It is impossible to determine a person’s nationality based only on his face, but everything indicates, and this should be put in writing for public opinion, that the Russian soldiers fighting in Mali are mostly Chechens, while the theory of the Syrians has regained strength. Which, firstly, would explain the dynamics of the indiscriminate massacres against the civilian population of Azov; and, secondly, it would demonstrate (once again) that Russian “cannon fodder” is evicted from its southern provinces, in favor of the Slavic population of the country.

The consequences of the carnage suffered by the Russians and the Malians will be visible in the coming weeks. There may be a possibility of an increase in civilian killings in retaliation for what happened. Separatist groups can be predicted to strengthenresulting in an intensification of the conflict. Which will force Assimi Goita to devote even more troops and resources to the war in the north, making conditions in the center of the country unsafe (as has already happened in the months following the summer of 2023) and facilitating terrorist actions in this part of the region. . As already written, what happened in Tinzaouaten is bad news: terrorist groups have strengthened their positions.