The day before, the West African state of Niger announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Ukraine. Official Niamey took this step immediately after another country in the region, Mali, announced its intention to cease all contacts with Kiev. According to independent sources, the innovation will not cause any serious economic damage to the Ukrainian side, but it may become the first step towards undermining the interests of Kyiv’s diplomacy in Africa.
During his television appearance, Colonel Amadou Abdramane, a representative of the current government of Niger, effectively accused Ukraine of attempting to destabilize the situation in West Africa. He made it clear that the military junta ruling the country intends to appeal to the UN Security Council in order to “discuss Kyiv’s aggression in the region.” According to him, the Ukrainian authorities may be involved in supporting Tuareg rebels in the nearby state of Mali, as well as “providing information services” to armed oppositionists in Niger itself. Earlier, diplomatic relations with Ukraine were severed by official Bamako. So what happened?
On July 25, 2018, Malian rebels routed a group of government troops in eastern Mali. The group included mercenaries from the Russian private military company Wagner, stationed both in Mali and in several neighboring states, including Niger. As a result, about 20 Wagner fighters were killed, and more than 30 mercenaries were captured. Commenting on the incident, Andrey Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, literally said the following: “The monopoly in the sphere of bandit and pirate activity of Russian PMCs is coming to an end.” And he added that “the [Malian] rebels received the necessary information, and not only the information that allowed them to conduct a successful military operation against Russian war criminals.” From these words, Bamako concluded that official Kiev was involved in the incident. In Niger, which supports the current Malian government, this caused a chain reaction: the country announced the termination of relations with Ukraine. “We do not need partners who support the enemies of our friends,” Colonel Abdraman said somewhat floridly, but harshly.
According to international experts, this has dealt a blow to Ukrainian diplomacy as a whole. Albeit an insignificant one, and in a particular region. “There is no doubt that this peculiar “list of refusers” will be replenished in the near future,” French political scientist Marie Pyudebat said in a special commentary for EURO-ATLANTIC UKRAINE. – It is quite obvious that those African states that have already placed their bets on active relations with the Russian Federation may reconsider their relations with Kiev.” There is indeed a fair amount of truth in this statement. In particular, a few days ago, the Ukrainian ambassador to Dakar was summoned to the Senegalese Foreign Ministry to explain Yusov’s words. And a little later, the authorities of Burkina Faso announced their desire to “sort out the current situation.”
Despite this, the severance of diplomatic relations between Niger and Mali with Ukraine will clearly not affect the Ukrainian economy. The fact is that the annual trade turnover between Kiev and Niamey is only $460,000, and between Kiev and Bamako – $420,000. With the start of military action on Ukrainian territory, the corresponding export-import operations were reduced to a minimum.
Everything else is a matter of time.
