BAMAKO, Mali
The military juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have written to the U.N. Security Council to denounce what they said was Ukraine's support for rebel groups in West Africa's Sahel region, Mali's foreign ministry said.
Mali cut
diplomatic ties with Ukraine in early August over comments by a
spokesperson for Ukraine's military intelligence agency, Andriy Yusov, about
fighting in Mali's north that killed Malian soldiers and mercenaries from the
Russian Wagner group in late July. The military government of Niger followed
suit days later in solidarity with its neighbour.
Yusov had said Malian
"rebels" had received
necessary information "to conduct a successful military
operation".
Mali and Niger interpreted
Yusov's comments as an admission of Ukraine's direct involvement in the
conflict, and accused it of supporting international terrorism as a result.
Ukraine has repeatedly called
the allegations groundless and untrue. Its foreign ministry did not
immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. The country is still
locked in heavy fighting with Russia more than two years after Moscow's
invasion.
A Tuareg rebel alliance has
also said
it did not receive any Ukrainian support.
Both ethnic Tuareg separatists
and jihadist insurgents operate in north Mali. The Tuareg said they had killed
at least 84 Wagner mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers over days of fierce
fighting in July.
An al Qaeda affiliate
separately said it had killed 50 Wagner mercenaries and 10 Malian soldiers in
an ambush on one of those days.
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