Rebels Use Ukrainian Drone Tactics to Fight Russians in Mali

The Azawad Liberation Front has driven the Kremlin’s forces from key territories in the Sahel

A recent video showed a drone assault on a Russian camp in Kidal

Jack Denton, Nairobi

Thursday April 30 2026, 5.45pm BST

Rebel fighters targeting Russian mercenaries in northern Mali have exhibited sophisticated use of drones of the type used widely and effectively by Ukraine in its defence against the Kremlin’s invasion.

The Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) forced Russians from the city of Kidal on Sunday in a withdrawal that experts said was threatening Moscow’s ambitions in Africa. Tuareg rebels have since seized towns and villages in three regions of northern Mali that make up more than 50 per cent of the country’s territory.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian forces would stay in Mali. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said: “Russia will continue, including in Mali, to combat extremism, terrorism and other harmful phenomena and will continue to provide assistance to the current government.”

Ukraine has previously aided the Tuareg separatists who often find Russian mercenaries in their crosshairs as they battle the Moscow-backed military government in Mali, fighting for their own state in the country’s north.

In their latest assault Tuareg fighters have used drones resistant to electronic jamming because of their connection to pilots via fibre-optic cables. This is key evidence of Kyiv’s lasting influence, even if Ukraine has not been directly involved in the conflict.

There is no evidence that Ukraine has aided the FLA’s allies Jamat Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), Al-Qaeda’s franchise in west Africa, in their recent attacks. JNIM has assaulted strongholds in central and southern Mali, killing the minister of defence and intelligence chief and bringing violence to the capital, Bamako, now under siege. The governments of Russia and Mali have accused Kyiv of a role in the recent violence. Ukraine has not commented. 

A recent video shared by the FLA’s media arm showed a drone assault on a Russian camp in Kidal consistent with fibre-optic suicide drones. Images of FLA fighters with such drones also circulated online last year.  

Ukraine began training Tuareg drone pilots as early as 2022, the year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a year after Russian mercenaries entered Mali, according to Nina Wilén, director of the Africa programme at Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels. 

The FLA was specifically trained to use fibre-optic drones, which Ukraine first started using on battlefield in 2024, research from the Egmont Institute published this month showed.

Ukraine said that it supported Tuareg rebels in a July 2024 attack in Tinzawatène, in the Kidal region, which killed 84 Russian mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers. 

Andriy Yusov, spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster: “The rebels received all the necessary information they needed and not just [information] … You will see more of this in the future.”

Mali severed diplomatic ties with Ukraine over the matter in August 2024. 

Last September Abdoulaye Maiga, the Malian prime minister, told the UN general assembly: “A year later the situation has worsened and the Ukrainian regime has become one of the main suppliers of kamikaze drones to terrorist groups. As far removed as they may seem, the war in Ukraine and terrorism in the Sahel are connected.”

Russian forces beaten back by al-Qaeda militants in Mali

Ukraine has denied that it provided material support, such as drones, which are commercially available models, to Tuareg rebels.

“It’s very hard to say exactly the link [with FLA today], and the Ukrainians have been clear about toning this down after Tinzawatène because they realised it could backfire,” said Wilén. “For the Ukrainians, before Tinzawatène, the motive had always been to fight Russians abroad wherever they can.”

In 2025 Mohamed Ramadane, a spokesman for the FLA, said that fighters from his group had travelled to Ukraine to receive specialist training in the use of drone warfare.

Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesman for the Tuareg separatists of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), poses during a photo session.

Mohamed Ramadane

“Back on the ground they significantly strengthened their operational skills and in turn trained other fighters in this strategic area. Today this technological mastery is fully integrated into our combat capabilities,” Ramadane said. “Perhaps what binds us most to Ukraine is that like us it is suffering Russian barbarism and imperialism.”

Russia’s defence ministry said this week that 12,000 militants were involved in what it called an attempted coup in Mali, and that fighters were trained by Ukrainian and European instructors.

In a national address on Tuesday Assimi Goita, the Malian president, said that there was “a broader destabilisation campaign devised and carried out by armed terrorist groups and their internal and external sponsors who provide them with intelligence and logistical support”, a likely reference to France, Mali’s former colonial ruler whose military was expelled from the country after a series of coups this decade.

Wilén cautioned against over-emphasising the link between Ukraine and the FLA. “It’s playing into the speech by the military junta in Mali, which is saying there are external forces propping up JNIM and FLA,” she said.