The military juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have written letters to the UN Security Council denouncing what they believe is Ukraine’s support for rebel groups in West Africa’s Sahel region, the Malian Foreign Ministry said.
Mali broke off diplomatic relations with Ukraine in early August after Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence service, commented on fighting in northern Mali in which Malian soldiers and mercenaries from the Russian Wagner group were killed at the end of July.
The military government of Niger followed this example a few days later in solidarity with its neighbor.
Yussov had stated that the Malian “rebels” had received the necessary information “to carry out a successful military operation”.
Mali and Niger interpreted Yusov’s statements as an admission of Ukraine’s direct involvement in the conflict and accused the country of supporting international terrorism.
Ukraine has repeatedly described the allegations as baseless and untrue. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
More than two years after Moscow’s invasion, the country is still embroiled in heavy fighting with Russia.
An alliance of Tuareg rebels also declared that they were not receiving any support from Ukraine.
In northern Mali, both ethnic Tuareg separatists and jihadist insurgents are active.
The Tuareg said they killed at least 84 Wagner mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers during days of heavy fighting in July.
Read also: Mali breaks diplomatic relations with Ukraine over betrayal in Wagner ambush
An al-Qaeda offshoot also claimed to have killed 50 Wagner mercenaries and ten Malian soldiers in an ambush on one of these days.
In their letter to the Security Council, the foreign ministers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso called on it to take “responsibility” for Ukraine’s actions and to prevent “subversive acts” that threaten stability in the region and on the continent.
The text of the letter was published on the Malian Foreign Ministry’s social media account.
Diplomats said the document was forwarded to the 15-member Security Council on Tuesday evening.
Since their juntas came to power over the past four years, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have turned their backs on their traditional Western and regional allies and turned instead to Russia.
The July attacks, which took place in the Kidal region of northern Mali near the border with Algeria, may be Wagner’s worst defeat since the organization helped the junta fight jihadist insurgents two years ago.
The ethnic Tuareg are an independent group that lives in the Sahara region, which includes parts of northern Mali.
In 2012, Tuareg-led separatists began an insurgency that was pushed back into Mali’s arid north and later hijacked by militant Islamist groups.
