Ukraine has deployed military personnel to several African countries in an attempt to open a “second front” against Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Borisenko has said. In an interview with TASS published on Friday, the Russian diplomat named Mali, Libya, and Sudan as countries where Ukrainian personnel have allegedly supported armed groups or carried out attacks against Russian interests.

He said Ukrainian instructors, including “those trained in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles,” are embedded with Islamist militants in Mali, which has battled a jihadist insurgency for over a decade.

Ukraine has been at the center of a diplomatic dispute in the Sahel since an ambush in July 2024 by Tuareg rebels killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Russian military contractors. Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andrey Yusov said at the time that the rebels received information that enabled the attack, although Kiev later denied supporting terrorism.

Recent attacks have targeted strategic military sites across Mali and neighboring Niger, including the airport in Niamey, which also houses an airbase and the headquarters of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) joint force. Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso established the force to combat the regional insurgency with Russian support under defense and counterterrorism agreements.

The AES has accused foreign powers, including France and Ukraine, of supporting armed groups behind attacks across the Sahel. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his Chadian counterpart, Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul, that former colonial powers are using Ukrainian militants alongside terrorist groups to destabilize the Sahel and undermine Russia’s ties with countries in the region.

Borisenko also said on Friday that Ukrainian instructors sent to Libya to train local forces in drone warfare used “unmanned boats against the Russian tanker Arctic Metagaz, which was damaged earlier in March” between Libya and Malta and is “still drifting in the Mediterranean.” The Russian Investigative Committee said aerial and naval drones damaged its control systems and two storage tanks, injuring two crew members.

In Sudan, Borisenko said Ukrainian personnel fought alongside the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during its capture of El Fasher late last year, when dozens of civilians were killed. A Sudanese Foreign Ministry official told RT in June 2025 that Kiev provided drones to the RSF, which has been locked in a brutal civil war with the Sudanese army since April 2023.