Among the dozens of wagner mercenaries who died in Mali in July were russian war veterans who fought in Ukraine, Libya and Syria. Reuters writes about this with reference to interviews with their relatives and a review of social media, UNN reports.
Details
The newspaper writes that the loss of experienced fighters exposes the dangers faced by russian mercenaries working for military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
The defeat in Mali raises doubts that moscow, which has admitted to funding wagner and incorporating many of its fighters into the Defense Ministry's forces, will be able to achieve more than Western and UN troops.
Reuters identified 23 soldiers who went missing and two more who were captured by Tuareg in Mali. Some of them survived the siege of Bakhmut in Ukraine, while others served in Libya, Syria and other countries. At least one of them is a former russian soldier. The 23 missing wagner men were identified through relatives who wrote to the official wagner chat room on Telegram, checking their names against social media accounts, publicly available data, and facial recognition software. All the relatives received calls from wagner recruiters on August 6 to inform them that their husbands had gone missing, the group said in a statement.
One of the relatives of the deceased wagner told Reuters that her son was recruited in 2022 in prison, where he was serving a drug sentence. He fought in Ukraine, then traveled to Africa to join his former commander. Among the most experienced men was 48-year-old alexander lazarev, a veteran of the russian army who fought in the wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s and 2000s, according to his wife's posts on the wagner channel.
Reuters was unable to confirm the total number of casualties among the wagnerians. One video, out of more than 20 sent to Reuters by a Tuareg rebel spokesman, shows at least 47 bodies, mostly white men, in military uniforms lying in the desert. Reuters has verified the location and date of the video.
Facial recognition software was used to identify two other men captured by Tuareg based on photos and video of the ambush published by Tuareg sources. Tuareg rebels posted videos and photos of the two captives on social media. Mohamed Elmauloud Ramadan, a spokesman for the rebel alliance, confirmed that the men were held captive by the rebels as of late August.
Recall
After the death of Prihodzhin in August last year, wagner employees were invited to join a newly created group called the African Corps under the russian ministry of defense.