French Media Confirmed That Paris Is Backing Ukraine In Mali

By Andrew Korybko

A division of labour can now be discerned: the US masterminded this war against Russia’s Malian ally, which al-Qaeda-aligned Islamic radicals are leading in alliance with Tuareg separatists, who are in turn directly backed by Ukraine and indirectly by France through neighbouring Algeria.

The Malian Crisis has become an international one after French media RTL confirmed late last week that not only is Ukrainian military intelligence operating on the ground in support of the “Azawad Liberation Front” (FLA), but that Paris is backing them as well. Ukraine boasted in summer 2024 about the support that it gave the FLA’s predecessor during their ambush of the former Wagner so its involvement in the Malian Crisis was already suspected by many.

Likewise, given that Mali falls within what France considers to be its “sphere of influence”, its involvement was also suspected but has now finally been confirmed. Moreover, RTL confirmed that Ukraine “proposed a detailed plan to the French authorities to dislodge the juntas from the Sahel region” at the beginning of last year, but France apparently only just now took them up on it. The reality, however, is likely that they’ve been planning this in collusion with Algeria and the US since then.

Another interesting tidbit is that France’s support for Ukraine “seems to favour the jihadists” with whom the FLA is allied. As RTL phrased it, “By limiting its operational support to these Ukrainian relays, France avoids direct cooperation with jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda.” Had it not been for the FLA’s alliance with them, then France would have probably directly supported this group, which RTL hinted at by reminding readers that “the Tuareg rebels have a long-standing relationship with French intelligence services”.

A division of labour can now be discerned. Al-Qaeda-affiliated “Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin” (JNIM) Islamic radicals provide most of the foot soldiers against the Malian Armed Forces (FAMA), while their FLA allies provide a semblance of international legitimacy for their ideological cause. Ukraine, which is indebted to the West for its nearly four and a half years of military support against Russia, has been tasked with directly interfacing with the FLA for providing indirect support to JNIM.

France in turn helps Ukraine, which is almost certainly being coordinated from Algeria as part of its de facto military-spy junta’s efforts as of late to improve ties with the West, France and the US in particular. Algeria is also suspected of providing logistical support to Ukraine ahead of their shared Tuareg allies’ summer 2024’s ambush of the former Wagner since there’s no other realistic way for Ukraine to have aided them seeing as how Niger had already by then militarily allied with Russia.

And finally, atop this hierarchy sits the US, which masterminded the Malian Crisis and presumably also subsequently planned ones in its neighbouring Burkinabe and Nigerien allies as part of what has recently been described as the Neo-Reagan Doctrine of rolling back Russian influence worldwide. This division of labour parallels the one associated with the Syrian War in that Algeria plays Turkiye’s role, JNIM plays ISIS’ and other Islamic radicals’, while the Tuareg’s role closely resembles the Kurds.

Unlike how it took 13 years for the West to achieve its goal in Syria, it might succeed a lot sooner in Mali after Nigeria intimated last week that it might intervene there. In what certainly wasn’t a coincidence, the US released its new counterterrorism strategy around the same time, which calls on Europe to “take greater responsibility for its own security. This includes CT operations in Africa.” Even just the possibility of JNIM’s conquest of Mali could therefore serve as the pretext for another French intervention there.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.

Categories: Africa, Analysis, Geopolitics

Tags: Africa, Al Qaeda, Algeria, France, Geopolitics, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Russia, The Sahel, Tuaregs, Ukraine, USA