After destruction of Wagner mercenaries in Mali, part of occupiers can be withdrawn from Ukraine - ISW

After the significant losses recently suffered by the Wagner Group in Mali, the Kremlin will need a large-scale replacement of militants in Africa with servicemen of the African Corps of the Ministry of Defense of the russian federation. At the same time, part of this corps was recently transferred to the Kharkiv Region to support the offensive actions of the occupiers.

This was reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

It is noted that several well-known russian military bloggers, critical of the leadership, claim that the Ministry of Defense of the russian federation is happy about the losses of the Wagner Group. They suggest that the russian military leadership will use this incident as an excuse to end the activities of Wagner's fighters in the Sahel and replace them completely with units of the Africa Corps of the Ministry of Defense.

Some russian bloggers cited an unidentified source in the putin administration as saying that Africa Corps personnel would replace Wagner's troops throughout the "Sahel Triad" (Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger).

The Institute for the Study of War suggests that the Africa Corps likely lacks current capabilities to adequately replace Wagner Group, particularly in Mali, as part of the corps was recently deployed to Ukraine to participate in an offensive effort in the northern Kharkiv Region.

"A large-scale replacement of the Wagner, after losses such as those suffered in the recent ambush, is likely to redeploy some Africa Corps fighters to Mali away from the front line in Ukraine, and russian military command is unlikely to consider a full replacement of Wagner in Mali or elsewhere in the Sahel as a priority task at the moment," the ISW report said.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in the north of the African state of Mali, near the border with Algeria, Tuareg rebels said that they killed and wounded dozens of soldiers and mercenaries of the Wagner PMC during two days of fighting. This comes after Mali's army reported the loss of two of its soldiers and the killing of around 20 rebels.

Earlier it was reported that in the battles for Bakhmut of the Donetsk Region, the Wagner PMC lost almost 20,000 people, 90% of them - recruited prisoners.

To request a correction, please send an email.