Casualties are seen among debris and damaged vehicles after clashes between Tuareg rebels and Russian Wagner mercenaries in northeastern Mali, near Tinzaouaten, Mali, July 2024. via Coordination of Azawad Movements Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Grisly footage of dead fighters has now circulated online, and some of relatives told Reuters the bodies of their husbands and sons had been abandoned in the desert. Reuters could not confirm how many of the men it identified were dead.
Margarita Goncharova said her son, Vadim Evsiukov, 31, was first recruited in prisonwhere he was serving a drug-related sentence in 2022. He rose through the ranks in Ukraine to lead a platoon of 500 men, she said. After coming home, he worked as a tailor but struggled with survivor’s guilt and secretly travelled to Africa in April to join his former commander, she said.
Vadim Evsyukov, who was among Russian Wagner mercenaries killed during a clash with Tuareg rebels in Mali. via social media Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
"He wanted to fly to Africa many times. I discouraged him as much as I could," Goncharova said in an interview with Reuters. "I told him ’fate has given you a once-in-a-million chance. You can start your life again, you’ve won such a crazy lottery’."
The Russian Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Wagner did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
After Prigozhin died in August last year, Wagner employees were invited to join a newly created group called the Africa Corps, under the defence ministry, "to fight for justice and the interests of Russia," according to the Africa Corps channel on social-media platform Telegram.
On the channel, Africa Corps says about half its personnel are former Wagner employees who it allows to use Wagner insignia. Wagner’s social media channels remain active.
The Russian government has not publicly commented on the Tinzaouaten battle.
Mali’s armed forces-led government said the defeat had no impact on its goals. The Malian Armed Forces "are committed to restoring the authority of the state throughout the country," army spokesman Colonel Major Souleymane Dembele told Reuters.
Wagner has acknowledged heavy losses in the Mali ambush but gave no figure. The Malian army, which fought alongside the Russians, also did not give a toll. Tuareg rebels, who are fighting for an independent homeland, said they had killed 84 Russians and 47 Malians.
CMA (Tuareg rebel alliance) fighters inspect a damaged armored vehicle, said to have been used by Wagner mercenaries involved in clashes against Tuareg rebels in northeastern Mali, near Tinzaouaten, Mali, July 2024. via Coordination of Azawad Movements Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Reuters could not independently establish how many were killed in battle. One video, out of more than 20 sent to Reuters by a Tuareg rebel spokesman, showed at least 47 bodies, mostly white men, in military-style uniforms lying in the desert. Reuters verified the location and date of the video.
Mikhail Zvinchuk, a prominent blogger close to the Russian defence ministry, said on social media platform RuTube in August that the defeat showed Wagner fighters who arrived from Ukraine had underestimated the rebels and the Al Qaeda fighters.
MISSING IN ACTION
Wagner-linked Telegram accounts named two of the dead as Nikita Fedyakin, the administrator of The Grey Zone, a popular Wagner-focused Telegram channel with over half a million subscribers, and Sergei Shevchenko, who the accounts described as the unit commander. Reuters could not verify the identity of Shevchenko.
Reuters separately identified 23 Wagner operators missing in Mali via relatives who posted in an official Wagner Telegram chat group, checking the names against social media accounts, publicly available data and facial recognition software. All the relatives received calls from Wagner recruiters on Aug. 6 to notify them their men were missing in action, they said in the chat group.
A woman reacts in front of a makeshift memorial during a commemoration ceremony held to pay tribute to Wagner fighters, who were recently killed in Mali by northern Tuareg rebels, in central Moscow, Russia August 4, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Lyubov Bazhenova told Reuters she had no idea her son Vladimir Akimov, 25, who had briefly served in Russia’s elite airborne forces as a conscript, had signed up. She was angry with Wagner for sharing no further information about his fate or the whereabouts of his body. She said letters to the prosecutor’s office, defence ministry and foreign ministry had gone unanswered.
A screen grab from a handout video shows people who Tuareg rebels say are Russian Wagner mercenaries with Mali soldiers in northeastern Mali, near Aguelhok, Mali, July 2024. via Coordination of Azawad Movements Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Facial-recognition software was used to identify another two men captured by Tuareg fighters, based on photographs and videos of the ambush site published by Tuareg sources. The Tuareg rebels posted videos and photos of the two captives on social media. Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesman for the rebel alliance, confirmed the men were in rebel captivity as of late August.
One of the missing fighters, Alexei Kuzekmaev, 47, had no military experience, his wife Lyudmila Kuzekmaeva told Reuters.
"Neither my hysterics, nor tears, nor persuasion - nothing helped. He just confronted me a month before he left home. He said ’I bought a ticket and will be leaving.’"
Among the most experienced men was Alexander Lazarev, 48, a Russian army veteran who served in wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s and 2000s, according to his wife’s posts in the Wagner channel.
Alexander Lazarev, who was among Russian Wagner mercenaries killed during a clash with Tuareg rebels in Mali. via social media Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
She declined to comment. Lazarev appears in many photos on the Russian Facebook equivalent VKontakte wearing military uniform, with symbols linked to several army subdivisions.
PARASTATAL MERCENARY FORCE
Democratic governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger were overthrown in a series of coups since 2020 driven by anger with corrupt leaders and a near decade of failed Western efforts to fight insurgencies that have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The military juntas have kicked out French and U.S. troops and U.N. peacekeepers.
In Africa, Wagner emerged in Sudan in 2017 as the deniable face of Russian operations. Its enterprises soon ranged from protecting African coup leaders to gold mining and fighting jihadists. Wagner is also active in Central African Republic. It first appeared in Mali in late 2021.
Wagner’s fortunes rose and fell last year. In May, the group led Russia to its first significant Ukrainian battlefield victory in almost a year with the capture of Bakhmut. But after his criticism of Russian military leaders and his effort to lead a rebellion weeks after the Bakhmut victory, Prigozhin died in a fiery plane crash in August. The Kremlin has rejected as an "absolute lie" U.S. officials’ claim that Putin had Prigozhin killed.
Eric Whitaker, the top U.S. envoy to Burkina Faso until retiring in June, who previously served in Niger, Mali and Chad, said the Putin administration has achieved complete control over the Wagner brand in the post-Prigozhin era.
"Africa Corps earns (the Russian government) hard-currency payments from host governments for its services and also gains a significant sources of revenue from gold derived from its activities in the Sahel," he said.
CMA (Tuareg rebel alliance) fighters who clashed with Russian Wagner mercenaries are seen in northeastern Mali, near Tinzaouaten, Mali, July 2024. via Coordination of Azawad Movements Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Russian mercenary activity soared in Mali after Africa Corps was formed, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group. Based on media reports and social media documenting, the data shows violent events linked to Russian mercenaries rose 81% and reported civilian fatalities rose 65% over the past year, compared to the year before Prigozhin’s death.
Wagner does not publish recruitment figures. Jędrzej Czerep, an analyst at Warsaw-based think tank Polish Institute of International Affairs, estimated that around 6,000 Russian mercenaries serve in Africa, while three diplomatic sources said about 1,500-2,000 were in Mali.
"When Africa Corps started to promote and recruit, they were flooded with applications," said Czerep.
"Being sent to one of the African missions was seen as far safer than Ukraine," he said.
Tuareg spokesman Ramadane said the rebel alliance was preparing for more clashes.
Further losses could eventually drive Russia out, said Tibor Nagy, the top U.S. envoy to Africa in 2019, when Wagner withdrew from northern Mozambique months after around a dozen of its men were killed during a conflict with an Islamic State affiliate.
"They were out of there very quickly," said Nagy.
Wagner has not publicly commented on its plans in Mali.