The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry criticized Mali’s decision to cut off ties following GUR representative Andrey Yusov’s boast that Ukraine was behind the Tuaregs’ ambush of Wagner there late last month that reportedly killed several dozen fighters. He said at the time that “The rebels received the necessary information and not just information, which allowed them to conduct a successful military operation against Russian war criminals. We certainly will not disclose details at this time; to be continued.”
Fellow Sahelian Alliance/Confederation member Niger then followed Mali’s lead by doing the same, while their shared Burkinabe ally has yet to do so even though it also condemned this and President Ibrahim Traore recently drew attention to how Ukrainian arms have helped fuel his country’s conflict. For background, this analysis here from earlier in the spring talked about Ukraine’s role in aiding American “black ops” in Africa while this one here from last month exposed its role in the recent ambush.
Having familiarized themselves with the facts, it should be easier for the reader to see through the insincerity of Ukraine criticizing Mali for cutting off ties since it had hitherto proudly played the role of America’s “black ops” sidekick in Sudan, not to mention boasting about behind the Tuareg’s ambush. It was either exaggerating or completely making up the latter, but in any case, it would have objectively been better in hindsight for Yusov not to have said anything about that at all.
The problem though is that morale at home and among Ukraine’s supporters abroad, both at the state and civil society levels, is collapsing as a result of Russia’s gradual on-the-ground gains. Kiev is panicking, which why it prefers to engage in high-profile media stunts such as Yusov’s boast and Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region, all for the purpose of reshaping perceptions. Neither accomplished anything worthwhile, yet each still serves to distract from the fact that Russia is winning.
Its aforementioned boast came back to bite it after Mali, Niger, and possibly soon also Burkina Faso cut off ties with Kiev in response to its military-intelligence representative admitting that his country is aiding groups that their governments consider to be terrorists. If there was anyone clever in charge of Ukrainian soft power, then they could have doubled down on their country’s support for the Tuaregs in parallel with promoting their cause, which could have dealt political damage to Mali if it was amplified.
Instead, they instinctively reverted to ranting about Russia in their statement, which came off as overly defensive and didn’t achieve anything for them with regard to winning hearts and minds (or rather misleading the world about its cause). This short-sighted and ill-thought-out response speaks to how incapable Ukraine’s soft power practitioners are and reaffirms the observation that they’re trying to boost morale among their supporters more so than make any actual soft power or military gains.
Had they implemented the policy that was described above, then that could have put Russia and the Sahelian Alliance/Confederation on the narrative defensive by generating a discussion among the global public about the merits of the Tuaregs’ cause, albeit partially to divert attention from their terrorist ties. In any case, Ukraine wouldn’t have even been placed in this dilemma had Yusov not boated about Kiev being behind the Tuaregs’ ambush of Wagner, and he would have done much better to remain silent.
