28.07.2024 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP
In northwest Africa, rebels have killed a detachment of the Russian private military company Wagner that was trying to capture the city of Tinzaouaten in Mali. Some of the fighters were captured, but most were killed, including one of the Russian commanders who had captured the Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Soledar.
This is the mercenary “Lotus”, who headed the PMC after the death of its financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and former leader Dmitry Utkin. Russian pro-war bloggers reported on the losses of the armed group in one of the countries of the African Sahel.
Earlier, photos and videos of the destruction of a column of government forces and Wagnerites in the Republic of Mali near the border with Algeria appeared online. The rebels announced the elimination of dozens of Russian militants and junta soldiers. They also brought down a military Mi-24 helicopter belonging to the Armed Forces of Mali. Although officials claimed that it “made an emergency landing due to technical problems.”
The defeat of the column of Malian troops and PMC mercenaries was confirmed in a conversation with AFP by a local official. According to him, they lost at least 17 people killed. But Russian Z-channels write about about 50 dead.
The event has stirred up the Russian pro-war community of bloggers, who have been distributing these images for two days now, reporting under them “horrible losses” among the PMC members. They named several mercenaries whose deaths have indeed been confirmed.
“A helicopter tried to help a convoy of PMC Wagner that was ambushed in Mali. It was shot down. Some of the Wagnerites were captured, and they are being ransomed now,” “This is indeed true, there are many of our guys, guys from Wagner, killed and captured in Mali. They were ambushed,” “Also, unfortunately, our good friend, the admin of the Grey Zone channel (call sign “White”), died in battle,” several propagandists wrote.
They published a photo of the alleged admin of the channel for the first time. ASTRA investigators (the publication calls itself an independent Russian media outlet) noted: if this is true, then we are talking about 31-year-old Nikita Fedyanin, a native of the Lipetsk region of the Russian Federation.
He lived in Moscow, and five years ago he published a video on his YouTube channel called “Special Purpose Center of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.”
These were shots of FSB officers working in the mountains, and at the end of them a monument to the fallen members of the unit was shown. In the comments, “Bely” also answered the question of whether “Hard Ingush” was in the video – a security officer blogger who at the time was writing online about Russian operations in the North Caucasus (he was probably familiar with him and also served in that region).
“The owner of this channel was listed in other people’s contacts as “Nikita Febos (Moscow)” and “Respected person.” Fedyanin also uploaded a picture to VK where his head was placed next to a photo of Putin against the backdrop of the Kremlin,” ASTRA writes.
In his latest post for his Z-channel, “Bely” admitted that the “Wagnerites” are in one of the countries in Africa’s Sahel, where they are “hot in the literal and figurative sense,” and cynically added: “Everything we like.”
The Russians also report that another well-known commander of the Wagner PMC, Anton “Lotus” Elizarov, who led the occupiers’ offensive on Soledar and Bakhmut during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has died in Mali.
“Good news continues to come from the Malian direction – according to information from channels associated with “Wagner”, it also became known about the liquidation of the person who headed the PVK after the murder of Putin’s cook and Nazi Utkin, namely the commander with the call sign “Lotus”. Not very media, but very well-known in those circles kats*pa, who participated in military operations in Ukraine, especially in the occupation of Soledar,” – commented on the hysteria in Russian publics UDA South spokesman Sergei Bratchuk.
It is known that Russian mercenaries have been present in Mali since 2021: in 2020, the government of the African republic was once again seized by a military junta, which a year later invited mercenaries from the Wagner PMC there, allegedly to ensure security.
As reported by OBOZ.UA, in September last year, a Russian military transport plane Il-76 crashed at the Malian airport of Gao. It was probably used by mercenaries of the PMC “Wagner” and at the time of the crash, several groups of militants were on board.
Only verified information is in our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Don’t fall for fakes!
No matter where the war criminal’s ghouls of death and destruction operate, they should get killed. Well done, rebels.