Ukraine’s foreign minister was this week supposed to have been in Africa winning allies and spreading Kyiv’s influence on a continent that has often remained stubbornly neutral, at best, over Putin’s invasion.
As Dmytro Kuleba set out he said he wanted to discuss “the participation of African states in global efforts to restore a just peace for Ukraine and the world”.
Instead his trip to Malawi, Zambia and Mauritius was overshadowed by anger from several other African countries that Kyiv had appeared to boast of helping Tuareg rebels massacre a force of Russian mercenaries.
After appearing to suggest Ukraine had given the rebels intelligence, Ukrainian media published a photo purporting to show Tuareg fighters waving a Ukraine flag.
The suggestion led two countries to suspend diplomatic ties with Ukraine and a West African regional power bloc to warn against foreign meddling.
The incident highlighted not only the ongoing war for influence being waged far beyond Europe’s battlefields, but also how far Ukraine has to catch up with Russia in Africa and the potential perils of intervening.
Ulf Laessing, director of the Sahel programme at German think tank Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said: “Right now there’s a widespread pro-Russian sentiment across the Sahel and in West Africa.
“[The Ukrainians] saying they had contributed to the killing of Russians, that doesn’t go down well.
“It was a bad idea really, it was a blunder to claim that they had contributed to an attack at a time when Africans are really wary of foreign interventions.”
From the start of Russia’s 2022 invasion, many African nations have remained neutral, refusing to condemn Putin’s attack, or join sanctions, while others have appeared to lean towards Moscow.
Some countries have said they refuse to be drawn into a new Cold War because of a conflict thousands of miles away and bristle at Western attempts to commandeer their foreign policies.
Some leaders have nostalgia for Soviet aid during their liberation struggles and others still rely on military protection from Moscow to battle rebel groups.
At the forefront of Russia’s efforts to win influence in Africa since 2017 has been the Kremlin-backed Wagner mercenary group.
The group, renamed the Africa Corps and brought under defence ministry control after its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ill-fated rebellion against Putin, provides, or has provided, military aid to countries including Mali, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Sudan and one of Libya’s warring parties.
In return Russia receives cash, or favourable access to natural resources including gold. Moscow, which is politically isolated in Europe, can also point to its allies in Africa.
It was Kyiv’s reaction to an attack on Wagner troops supporting Mali that sparked rebukes from several African capitals.
Late last month, Tuareg rebels said they had killed dozens of Russian military contractors and government troops in northern Mali. The rebel claim they had killed 84 Wagner troops would make it the mercenaries’ bloodiest defeat in Africa. Wagner acknowledged it had taken losses as videos emerged of corpses strewn across the ground.
In the aftermath, Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said the rebels had received “the necessary information” to launch the attack “and not just the information”.
“We certainly won’t go into details now – you will see more of this in the future,” he said.
He did not say who supplied the information, but following reports that Ukrainian special forces units have been fighting Wagner troops in Sudan, the comments were widely seen as Kyiv signalling it had expanded military action further into Africa.
A Ukrainian diplomat in Senegal posted Mr Yusov’s comment on social media.
The Kyiv Post then published a photo purporting to show celebrating Tuareg rebels waving a Ukraine flag.
Mali and Niger soon both cut diplomatic ties in response and the diplomat in Senegal was summoned and rebuked.
Such a response from Mali and Niger, who both host Russian forces, may have been expected, but the Economic Community of West African States also condemned “any attempt to drag the region into current geopolitical confrontations”.
Ukraine subsequently appeared to backtrack. Mr Yusov said his comments had been misinterpreted and Kyiv complained that Mali had cut ties “without conducting a thorough examination of the facts and circumstances… and without providing any evidence of Ukraine’s involvement”.
Mr Laessing said Tuareg rebels linked to jihadists were not popular in West Africa, adding to the backlash against Kyiv.
He said Kyiv may have provided small amounts of training or equipment, but it was likely they had overstated their involvement.
He said: “My impression was that the Ukrainians just wanted to boast that they were involved in something that hit Russian mercenaries, without having really done much.
“Then they realised it was a mistake to claim this and now they are kind of backtracking.”
On his tour, Mr Kuleba chose a more diplomatic stance.
He said: “Once again, I am convinced of how important it is to talk with African partners so that Russian narratives, Russian lies, do not poison the position of our African colleagues regarding the war that Russia unleashed against our state.”
Mr Laessing said: “If Ukraine wants to get its narrative through, it’s better to talk to people in capitals and avoid some kind of poisonous conflict where people are very sensitive about any foreign intervention.”
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