Ukraine And Mali Break Diplomatic Ties

The government of Mali has severed diplomatic ties with Ukraine due to claims that Kyiv supported an attack in the West African nation last month by armed groups that resulted in significant casualties among Russian mercenaries and Malian forces.

Col. Abdoulaye Maiga, the spokesman for the Mali government, stated in a statement on Sunday that remarks made by a Ukrainian official suggesting that his nation was involved in the insurgency in Mali were the reason behind the decision to immediately sever relations.

According to Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence service, armed groups in Mali had acquired from Kyiv “all the necessary information they needed” to carry out the July attack, as he said to Ukrainian radio Suspilne last week.

In July, jihadis and rebels in northern Mali murdered dozens of Russian Wagner mercenaries and Malian soldiers, in what one analyst called the Wagner group’s biggest battlefield defeat in years.

In a statement released on Monday, the foreign ministry of Ukraine said that Mali had severed relations without conducting a comprehensive investigation or presenting proof of its nation’s complicity in the assault.

Mali’s declaration comes after neighboring Senegal chastised Ukraine once more, claiming that the nation had supported the attack in July.