More and more videos suggest a secret operation by Ukrainian special forces in Africa. The presumed goal: to eliminate Russian Wagner mercenaries.
It sounds like a pretty crazy story: Ukrainian special forces operating on a secret mission in Africa to kill Russian mercenaries. What initially circulated as a rumor on the Wagner group’s Telegram channels and in the Ukrainian media now seems to have become more widespread. More and more videos are circulating on social media and the internet that claim to provide evidence.
In the most recent video that went online last week, three prisoners of war kneel in the desert sand. There are corpses and burnt palm fronds all around, apparently after a drone attack or firefight. In the background, a muezzin calls to prayer from a mosque. All three have Wagner badges on their uniforms, which are taken away from them. One of the prisoners has white skin and answers in Russian, the other two are apparently African and say nothing.
Masked uniformed officers interrogate the blindfolded white man in Russian. Their voices are distorted: “How did you get to Sudan?” they ask. He replies that he works for Wagner and has traveled from the Central African Republic to Karthum, Sudan’s capital, “to overthrow the government.” There were 100 men in his unit.
Russia supports the rebels in Sudan
Other videos show aerial photos, drones hovering over Karthum; more precisely about Omdurman, the sister city on the western side of the Nile, which divides the metropolis into two parts. Omdurman is almost entirely under the control of the Sudanese RSF rebels under their leader General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, better known by his nickname Hemedti. The RSF has been working closely with the Russian Wagner Troop since the outbreak of war in April 2023. This sent Hemedti weapons and other war equipment, even a private plane that took him to Moscow. Just a few days before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hemedti met then Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin in Moscow.
The drone footage now presumably shows Wagner mercenaries operating in small units in Omdurman. They wear high-tech war gear, including night vision goggles and modern helmets. In the videos you can see how projectiles – apparently fired from a drone – suddenly hit these units or their vehicles. There are a total of 14 videos with different attack targets. Sudanese journalists confirm: The aerial photos are of Omdurman.
These videos were initially published by the Ukrainian online newspaper Kyiv Post, which claims to have been leaked the recordings by Ukrainian military intelligence. However, many analysts are skeptical, emphasizing that such material “must be viewed with caution” because it is used for psychological warfare. The US broadcaster CNN investigated these videos and showed them to Ukrainian military officials. These stated so CNN, the Ukrainian secret service was “probably” responsible for the attacks on the Russian mercenaries in Sudan. These recordings cannot be independently confirmed.
Sudan’s gold for Russia’s war
Sudanese journalists and human rights activists confirmed to ntv.de that rumors about Ukrainian secret operations are also circulating within Sudan, but independent research and reporting has become impossible because all warring parties either manipulate the media for their own propaganda or target journalists silenced. Most media workers have now left the country anyway.
After Libya and the Central African Republic, Sudan was previously considered one of the most strategically important countries on the African continent for Russia. Russia’s government wants to build a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast to control transport shipping to Europe. To achieve this, Moscow relied on General Hemedti even before the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022 and in Karthum in April 2023.
Hemedti presents himself as the optimal partner for Moscow. Gold has so far been smuggled on a large scale from Sudan’s numerous mines, especially from the civil war region of Darfur, from which he is native, via Wagner canals to Libya and from there presumably reached Moscow via Syria or the United Arab Emirates. The US government has therefore placed two gold companies in Sudan on the US sanctions list, which work for Wagner and which enable Russia to circumvent Western sanctions.
“Diplomatic counteroffensive”
Until now, little was known about the financial flows of the Wagner Group. Since the Kremlin-affiliated oligarch and Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed his plane in August 2023, experts and analysts have been puzzling over how the group will now officially restructure itself within the structures of the Defense Ministry and under its new name “Afrikakorps”. Financing continues. It was previously suspected that the gold from Africa, especially from the Central African Republic and Sudan, was used to pay the wages of Wagner fighters, including those who were deployed in Ukraine. In this respect, Ukraine would theoretically have an interest in cutting off these sources of money.
The Russian offensive in Africa and the steady expansion of Wagner’s zone of influence on the continent have not gone unnoticed in Kiev either. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also made three trips to the continent last year, visiting more than 10 countries that do not have close ties with Moscow, including Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda. He himself called this a “diplomatic counteroffensive” after Russian President Vladimir Putin rolled out the red carpet for African heads of state in Saint Petersburg at the Africa-Russia Summit in July 2023.
“Russia is trying very hard to keep countries in its sphere of influence through coercion, bribery and fear,” emphasized Kuleba on his last trip to Africa in July 2023. Russia has two instruments for work in Africa, said Kuleba: “The m’s “The most important are propaganda and Wagner,” he said. “Our strategy is not to replace Russia, but to free Africa from Russia’s influence.”