Late on Monday, Ukraine refuted media allegations that it had supplied drones to rebels engaged in combat in northern Mali.
According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the Tuareg fighters in the West African nation utilize Ukrainian drones against the Mali army and Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, which claims to fight alongside it, with “discreet but decisive” assistance from Kyiv.
“Ukraine strongly rejects the accusations that have recently been released by the international media outlets about the alleged involvement of our state in the supply of UAVs to the rebels in Mali,” the foreign ministry of Ukraine stated in a statement.
Heavy warfare against Tuareg rebels is still going on along Mali’s border with Algeria, and the country has been facing an Islamist insurgency for years. In 2020 and 2021, military authorities took control of Mali in coups.
Kyiv’s remarks that the rebels received all “necessary” information to carry out operations that allegedly killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Wagner fighters in the north caused Mali to sever diplomatic ties with Ukraine in August.
Russia, which has stepped up its attempts to influence countries in Africa, particularly Mali, in recent years, has charged Ukraine with creating a “second front” against Russia by arming fighters in African nations that are friendly to Moscow.
Since February 2022, Moscow has been conducting a catastrophic war on Ukraine, killing thousands of people, the great majority of whom were Ukrainians.
