The Russian military force that had been guarding Mali’s junta said it was out of Kidal. Russia’s Africa Corps announced the pullout in a series of social media posts, saying it had “left the locality” together with Malian troops.
It followed a weekend of coordinated attacks across Mali by separatist fighters and Islamist militants. Strikes were reported in the central cities of Sevare and Mopti, and in Gao and Kidal in the north, on the southern edge of the Sahara.
Who claimed what
The Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, said on Sunday that the Russian troops had agreed to leave for good. It claimed Kidal and declared it “now free”. The group wants a breakaway state in the northern areas where ethnic Tuaregs predominate. Reports suggest its assault centered on cities in that region, while the jihadist Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) hit multiple areas at once.
Fighting resumed in Kidal on Sunday. Soon afterward, FLA spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane said the group and the Africa Corps had reached an agreement for the Russians’ “secure withdrawal from the fighting”. He had earlier told the BBC that the FLA stayed in the city because “elements of the Malian army and Russian mercenaries” were still there.
Kidal served for more than a decade as an unofficial headquarters of the separatist movement. Mali’s army, backed by Russian mercenaries, captured it in late 2023.
Mali’s authorities have not officially confirmed the loss. A source close to the local governor told AFP the troops were “no longer there – it’s the jihadists and FLA who are in Kidal”. AFP also reported that the capital was calm on Monday. Schools and offices were open, and several military checkpoints put up over the weekend had come down.
The Alliance of Sahel States, which groups Mali with military-led Burkina Faso and Niger, called the attacks a “monstrous plot backed by the enemies of the liberation of the Sahel”. It gave no further detail.
Fighting elsewhere
In Tessit, south of Gao, JNIM said Mali’s army had surrendered to its fighters, Reuters reported. The group’s statement added that Malian forces were being allowed to give up their weapons and withdraw safely. The army has not commented, and the BBC could not independently verify the claim.
The Africa Corps said on X on Monday that operations would go on elsewhere in the country, without saying where. In Kidal, it said, wounded personnel and heavy equipment had been evacuated. “The situation in the Republic of Mali remains complex,” it wrote, adding that some civilians were injured and taken to its medical units.
The Africa Corps
Most of its fighters once belonged to the Wagner group, the Russian mercenary outfit hired by governments across the continent to curb insurgencies. After Wagner leader Yevgeni Prigozhin died in 2023, the Russian defence ministry took over most of its operations and made them the backbone of the new Africa Corps.
Deputy Defence Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov oversees the unit. Maj-Gen Andrey Averyanov, a key figure in the GRU military intelligence service, runs its operations.
Moscow’s help to local governments has often been repaid with access to natural resources such as gold, diamonds and uranium. Like Wagner, the Africa Corps has been accused of numerous atrocities against civilians. In Mali, its members are reportedly paid the equivalent of at least $3,000 (£2,200) a month.
