Dozens of Russian mercenaries fighting for the notorious Wagner group in northern Africa were massacred over the weekend in Mali in an apparent ambush.
Footage reviewed by Fox News Digital showed dozens of Russian soldiers, some in varying degrees of undress, many collapsed on top of one another, strewn around burnt vehicles and apparently dead after a violent assault.
The events leading up the attack remain unclear, though the carnage was reportedly the result of an ambush by Tuareg separatists on Wagner and Malian forces near the border with Algeria.
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“Our forces decisively obliterated these enemy columns on Saturday,” Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesperson for the rebel movement in Northern Mali known as the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development, said in a statement Sunday, according to Al Jazeera.
“A large amount of equipment and weapons were seized or damaged”, the spokesperson added.
The statement reportedly said that the rebel groups also took an unconfirmed number of prisoners while seven of its fighters were killed and 12 others injured.
Russian media reported that at least 20 Wagner soldiers were killed in the ambush, while the Malian army said two of its soldiers had been killed, though some reports have suggested the Russian death toll could be as high as 80.
Fox News Digital could not independently verify the number of killed Russian or Malian soldiers depicted in the footage, or whether any fighters were taken prisoner.
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The ambush that appears to have occurred Saturday reportedly came after days of fighting in the Tinzaouatene area in northeast Mali.
Russian Wagner forces, formally run by Yevgeny Prigozhin who died in an August 2023 plane crash after defying the Kremlin, have been fighting alongside the Malian army since 2022 after Malian military leaders took over the North African nation and ousted French forces.
Fighting in Mali’s northern region has escalated in recent months after Mali’s military rulers scrapped a 2015 peace deal with the separatist group in January.
Mali has reportedly claimed that the Russian forces there are not Wagner mercenaries, but rather trainers aiding the army in its fight against Islamic extremists.
However, in a rare statement, Wagner said on Telegram that its forces in Mali under commander Sergei Shevchenko – whose call sign is “Pond” – engaged in a fight alongside Malian forces from July 22-27.
“On the first day, the ‘Pond group’ destroyed most of the Islamists and put the rest to flight,” Wagner said on Telegram according to a Reuters report Monday. “However, (an) ensuing sandstorm allowed the radicals to regroup and increase their numbers to 1,000 people.”
Shevchenko was reportedly killed in the fighting.
Reuters contributed to this report.
