Mali announced Aug. 5 that it has cut diplomatic relations with Ukraine, after a Kyiv military official boasted of having aided an insurgent attack in the country's north that left scores of government troops and Russian mercenaries dead a week earlier. Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency, said on social media that "the rebels received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals." While not saying whether Ukrainian military personnel were involved in the fighting or were present in the country, Yusov cryptically added that the GUR "won't discuss the details at the moment, but there will be more to come." Malian official Col. Abdoulaye Maiga said Yusov's comments "admitted Ukraine's involvement in a cowardly, treacherous and barbaric attack by armed terrorist groups."

Yusov's statements also failed to make clear which insurgent group the GUR had aided, as the ambush near the Algerian border had been claimed by two rival groups—Tuareg independence fighters and the Qaeda-aligned JNIM.

Last year, the US imposed sanctions on the head of Russia's Wagner Group in Mali, accusing the paramiitary force of using its operations in the country as a conduit for military equipment for the war in Ukraine. The Wagner Group force in the Sahel has since been reorganized as the Africa Corps.

Ukrainian forces are also said to be active in Sudan, where Russian mercenaries have similarly been involved in the fighting. (BBC News, The Guardian)