A Dark Masterpiece of Ukrainian Anti-Diplomacy: Offending the Global South by Loudly Supporting Insurgents and Terrorists in Africa

The government of Mali has officially severed diplomatic ties with Ukraine, and Niger has followed Mali in solidarity. Ukraine is a country in eastern Europe; Mali is located in the Sahel region of Africa. Their political and commercial relationships are, to put it mildly, not intense, neither in a positive nor – until now – a negative sense. Kiev does not even maintain an embassy in Bamako, Mali’s capital, despite having them in a number of other African states; Mali has no diplomatic mission in Ukraine either. At first sight, it is hard to understand how two countries that have so little to do with each other could even have managed to get into such a clash.

But leave it to Kiev to shoot itself in the foot. The strange falling-out is entirely due to Ukraine. Its leadership’s aggressive, arrogant, and shortsighted actions have left Bamako hardly any other option but to, in effect, tell Kiev to get lost. While this may appear to be a comparatively localized issue, that impression is misleading. In reality, Ukraine’s crude treatment of the African nation has wider significance because it is emblematic of its inability to persuade the Global South or even address it in a respectful manner.

But first things first. Here’s what happened: In late July, troops fighting for Mali’s government, from its own military and Russia's Wagner organization, were ambushed in the north of the country, close to the town of Tinzaouaten. The attackers also consisted of two different but – at least, de facto – cooperating forces: There were Tuareg insurgents, representing a long-standing separatist rebellion going back to 2012, organized in the CSP-DPA (Cadre Stratégique Pour la Défense du Peuple de l’Azawad). In addition, al-Qaeda-affiliated Jihadist terrorists operating under the label JNIM (Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin) also struck.

Details of this battle are still not entirely clear. Apparently, a sand and dust storm mostly neutralized the airpower advantage of the Mali government forces. However, it is certain that together, the Tuareg separatists and the Jihadist terrorists inflicted a bloody defeat on their opponents. Wagner’s losses were substantial, with reported numbers varying between over “two dozen,” “approximately 50,” and “over 80.” The government in Bamako has put losses among its own military’s soldiers at two dead and 10 injured.

The precise figures, though, are much less important than three simple facts: Both the Wagner troops and the soldiers of Mali’s military were fighting on behalf of the government. They were attacked by a combination of separatist Tuareg rebels and Jihadist terrorists and, most importantly from the perspective of the Malian government, both – the rebels and the terrorists – are enemies that it has a right, under international law, to combat and that outsiders have no right to support.

Enter Ukraine. Or to be precise, Kiev’s notorious military intelligence service HUR. In reality a CIA-trained assassination and black ops outfit with a predilection for crazy schemes meant to widen the Ukraine War, HUR couldn’t keep its mouth shut. Which, if you think about it, is an odd weakness for a clandestine agency. Shortly after the battle of Tinzaouaten, HUR spokesman Andrey Yusov went public, boasting that his service had assisted in the ambush by providing “all the necessary information they [the attackers] needed.” There has been speculation, too, that more may have been involved, such as drones and weapons.

Now, you may think that after such a massive indiscretion, the hatches would go down, with Yusov officially disavowed, gagged, and locked away (or at least fired). But this is the Zelensky regime, founded by and revolving around a histrionic self-promoter. So, no damage control. On the contrary, once in a hole dug by a spy who can’t keep a secret, Ukraine’s “diplomats,” whose forte is being undiplomatic, kept digging: Yury Pivovarov, Kiev’s ambassador to Senegal – why offend only one African country when you can antagonize two? – posted a video on his embassy’s website to do some more bragging about helping kill Mali government forces in Mali. Senegal’s government summoned the “diplomat,” and the video has now disappeared. It does make you wonder: Are the Kiev “elite” sending their draft-dodgers off to do “diplomacy”? How do they select such gems?

There are, of course, two levels to Kiev’s cluster-fiasco. If what Yusov boasted about did actually happen, that is, if Ukraine assisted a de facto coalition of separatist insurgents and Jihadist terrorists in attacking and killing Malian government forces – and that includes the Wagner troops here because their mission had a mandate from Bamako – then Kiev has, obviously, committed a major crime. Indeed, in that case, Mali would have a clear casus belli justifying going to war against Ukraine as a matter of self-defense under international law.

It is another matter that, given geographical distance and Kiev’s ultimate irrelevance as well as tendency to punish itself, such an action would make no practical sense for Bamako. The Ukrainian government’s reaction to Mali severing ties has, by the way, betrayed a very bad conscience indeed. Kiev, absurdly, claims Mali has no evidence for its involvement. Excuse me? A Ukrainian high military intelligence officer and an ambassador boast about it and that’s “no evidence”? Sometimes, Kiev’s communications do sound as if produced under the influence.

If, on the other hand, Yusov and Pivovarov have simply fantasized it all (unlikely as that is), then we are left with the picture of a regime in which high officials take a masochistic pleasure in telling tall tales that can only greatly damage their country. And make no mistake, damage it they will. Because Ukraine’s flagrant misbehavior in this matter is finding international attention. The matter has by no means remained minor but is reverberating through media across the globe. Especially in the Global South, this incident will be noted and remembered as revealing Kiev’s aggression and arrogance.

That is, of course, doubly ironic. First, throughout the proxy war for which the Zelensky regime has allowed Ukraine to be used, Kiev and its so-called “friends” in the West have tried to advertise Ukraine as on a par with the post-colonial states of the Global South. The rhetorical strategy has been as obvious as it has been crude, namely to garner sympathy by appropriating what Asians, Africans, and South Americans have for so long suffered at the hands of the West: a form of perverse role-playing from a country that has aligned itself with just that West to a suicidal degree and that, clearly, has no problem at all reproducing the West’s deep, ultimately racist arrogance toward the Global South. Second, the Zelensky regime has also been desperately trying to mobilize the Global South on its side in its struggle with Moscow. It has failed abysmally. The Mali incident shows why, and also shows why it won’t ever succeed. Not before Ukraine’s elites overcome their stodgy provincialism and learn some respect. That is, probably never.

Why? Let Mali have the last word here. Its government spokesman Abdoulaye Maiga made it all very clear: “Ukraine’s involvement in a cowardly, treacherous and barbaric attack by armed terrorist groups […] violates Mali’s sovereignty, going beyond the scope of foreign interference, amounting to support for international terrorism.”

First published on RT.com, 7 August 2024