Johannesburg — In a rare acknowledgment, Russia's private mercenary army PMC Wagner said Monday that it had suffered heavy losses in fighting against a Tuareg rebel alliance in the northern part of the African nation of Mali. The state-funded "private military company" did not say how many of its fighters were killed in a days-long battle near Mali's border with Algeria, but videos circulating on social media showed dozens of bodies, mostly appearing to be white men.
The mercenary group has been active in Mali for several years. It was hired by the leaders of the military junta who seized control of the country in a 2020 coup. Malian soldiers and their hired Wagner partners have been trying to wrest control of parts of the country that have remained in the hands of separatist Tuareg groups since the coup, as well as battling an Islamist insurgency.
Wagner, in a statement on the Telegram messaging app, said its forces had fought alongside the Malian army for five days from July 22 near the town of Tinzaouaten. Wagner said its forces "destroyed most of the Islamists before a sandstorm saw the militants regroup and return with more than 1000." Under that massive firepower, Wagner said it did "suffer losses," but provided no figures.
Russia's state-run news agency TASS reported Monday that only three of the Russian fighters were believed to have survived the battle, and their commander Sergey Shevchenko was among those killed in action.
The Malian army and Wagner fighters are believed to have been conducting operations for several months in a bid to gain control over the country's border with Algeria. The Taureg militias remain in control of parts of the border region, but militants affiliated with the JNIM organization, an alliance of al-Qaeda aligned groups, also operate there.
Videos posted on social media show the bodies of men, most of them white, lying in sand with Tuareg rebels talking and looting personal effects in the background, as well as destroyed vehicles and a downed helicopter.
The Tuareg rebel alliance in the area — known as the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-DSA) — said in a Saturday statement that it had seized armoured vehicles and tanks in the fighting at Tinzaouaten Thursday and Friday.
Spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane said in a Facebook post that after two days of intense fighting, the CSP-DSA had "inflicted heavy losses of human life with dozens of dead and injured," with forces still "chasing down enemy troops on the road" to nearby Kedal.
CBS News has been unable to verify the number of Wagner forces killed in the attack. The Malian army released a statement confirming the deaths of two of its soldiers and saying 10 others were wounded in the battle.
Russian mercenaries have acting as guns for hire on the African continent since 2017, when they were first brought in to work in the Central African Republic.
Images and video posted to social media accounts run by the Tuaregs, Wagner and other local militias indicated that a convoy of Malian army and allied Wagner forces may have been ambushed by Tuareg rebels who used an IED to stop the group followed, by an intense small-arms assault. A sandstorm appears to have added to the chaos of the battle.
Reports suggest the retreating government and Wagner forces were then attacked again and suffered further losses.
One of those killed in the attack according to widely shared posts on pro-Wagner social media accounts, was Nikita Fedyanin, 29-year-old Wagner fighter who operated a popular Telegram channel for the group called The Gray Zone.
CBS News has seen a photo that appears to show his dead body circulating on another Wagner telegram channel.
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Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have all had military coups over the last few years and turned to Russian mercenaries to bolster their own forces after kicking out French troops. They provide security for the ruling juntas and help battle Islamist groups including al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates.
Last month, Mali's army and Wagner mercenaries were accused of killing dozens of civilians in northern Mali.
"Malian and Wagner soldiers executed old men and shepherds and stole everything they found in the camps such as money and valuable jewelry," local official Hamadine Driss Ag Mohamed told The Associated Press, claiming 46 people were killed by the forces in total.
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