Why should Ukraine, already busy on the front lines of its war against Russia, get involved in the conflict in Sudan? Kiev is suspected of supporting drone strikes on the outskirts of Omdurman, a city on the other bank of the Nile from the capital Khartoum, American broadcaster CNN said on Wednesday, September 20.
For almost a week now, mostly subjective videos have been circulating on social networks showing “kamikaze” drones falling on light vehicles. “They were immediately noticed because there have been no drone attacks in the conflict in Sudan so far. That’s what we thought at first The Sudanese army took inspiration from the Ukrainian example“Then there was quick talk of a specifically Ukrainian deployment in the country,” explains Sim Tack, military analyst at Force Analysis, a conflict monitoring company.
Cyrillic text
CNN claims to have received confirmation from a Ukrainian military source that Kiev’s involvement in these attacks is the most likely hypothesis. Special forces were reportedly deployed to the scene to attack mercenaries from the Wagner Group and fighters from General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo’s Rapid Support Forces (FSR), known as “Hemedti”, who are suspected of being supported by the Russian paramilitary group .
According to CNN, these agents launched fourteen drone strikes on light vehicles carrying fighter jets.
When asked by the American broadcaster, the Ukrainian Defense Minister refused to “confirm or deny” these claims, while the regular army of General al-Burhan, which has been at war against the RSF since April 2023, assured that it had “no knowledge of the to have a Ukrainian operation.” Sudan”
Main clue to Ukraine’s involvement in these attacks: Images of the interface used by the drone operator “show text in both English and Cyrillic,” Sim Tack points out.
The drones identified in the videos, Chinese DJI MAVIC 3, were also regularly used by the Ukrainian army against the Russians. “These are civilian commercial drones that can be easily converted to deliver explosives,” emphasizes Danilo delle Fave, military strategy specialist at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) Verona.
Why not better drones?
Is this enough to conclude that this is the first proven operation by Ukrainian agents against Russian interests on the African continent? “The only way to be 100% sure would be an official confirmation from Ukraine or the army or the possibility of analyzing the rubble. “We probably won’t get anything out of it,” sums up Danilo delle Fave, who for his part considers the theory of Ukraine’s drones in Sudan to be plausible.
It remains to be seen who would have been sent there to carry out such a mission. “The selection is large. “Before the war, Ukraine had very active secret services,” emphasizes Sim Tack. For Danilo delle Fave, the main suspect would be “the GUR MOU, i.e. the Ukrainian military spies who have the reputation of being at the forefront of risky operations.”
Also read: Who are the FSR, these paramilitaries who are against the army in Sudan?
A deployment of elite troops that is fueling skepticism among some commentators about Ukrainian involvement. “If, in the current context of the war in Ukraine, Kiev goes so far as to send special agents to Sudan, why equip them with simple commercial drones when Ukraine is building much more sophisticated models capable of larger quantities to transport explosives?” asks Huseyn Aliyev, a specialist on the conflict in Ukraine at the University of Glasgow.
The DJI MAVIC 3 “may be effective for attacking one or two people in a car, but not for blowing up a light military vehicle with several soldiers,” this expert continues. In one of the published videos you can see how such a vehicle was forced to stop after a drone hit, but was not completely destroyed.
All this for this? That’s what the skeptics ask themselves. But the Ukrainians may not want to waste their best drones even when the counteroffensive is in full swing, respond those who consider the hypothesis of a Ukrainian operation possible in an interview with France 24.
Nor would the goal be to eliminate as many Wagner mercenaries as possible in one fell swoop. After all, these fighters no longer even take part in the war in Ukraine and have been limited to their African operations since the mutiny of their late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Target Russian interests in Sudan
It’s more about showing that “the Russians are not safe anywhere and that it is dangerous for everyone to work and do business with them,” says Danilo delle Fave.
Therefore, Sudan’s decision to attack Wagner and his supposed FSR allies may seem wise. The country has been a strategic economic issue for Moscow since 2014. After the imposition of international sanctions following the annexation of Crimea, Russia was looking for new sources of income, with gold mines in the south of the country representing an extremely attractive target.
Starting in 2017, Wagner did everything he could to ensure access to the Sudanese gold industry through investments from shell companies, as the New York Times revealed in an investigation published in June 2022.
This is also the reason why Russia preferred to rely on General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo. His clan actually “directly controls part of the gold mines,” Sim Tack points out.
Drone attacks would therefore be a warning. Ukraine wants to demonstrate its ability to go easy on Russia’s wallet: “Kiev knows that the war in Ukraine can last a long time and that by interfering in the Sudanese conflict, it can weaken a Russian source of income by helping the Allies’ opponents .” from Moscow,” notes Sim Tack. If these attacks are indeed Ukrainian in nature, they likely illustrate the old saying: “The enemies of my enemies are my friends.”