Much of the Russian information space response to the recent Tuareg insurgent ambush of a Wagner Group in northern Mali coalesced around the suggestion that the Russian MoD will seek to benefit from Wagner losses, highlighting the continued distrust between the Russian MoD and both the Wagner Group in the Sahel and pro-Wagner commentators.
Several prominent critical milbloggers claimed that the Russian MoD is "gloating" over losses the Wagner Group reportedly suffered during the attack and suggested that Russian military authorities will use this incident as a reason to end the deployment of Wagner personnel to the Sahel and completely supplant them with units of the Russian MoD's Africa Corps.
Some Russian milbloggers quoted an unidentified source within the Russian Presidential Administration as saying that Africa Corps personnel will replace Wagner troops in the entire "Sahelian Three" (Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger).
Other milbloggers blamed the Wagner command for incompetence and attempts to sabotage the arrival of Africa Corps personnel, highlighting the persistent information space divides between Wagner and Africa Corps–affiliated commentators.
Another Russian-veteran-community-linked milblogger more broadly called for Russia to learn from the incident, strongly emphasizing that Russian forces operating abroad should not expect to face "safe" adversaries and that Russia needs to commit more heavily to foreign operations to ensure sufficient personnel and equipment levels for Russian contingents abroad.
The Africa Corps, notably, likely lacks the current capacity to properly supplant Wagner operations, particularly in Mali, as Africa Corps elements have recently deployed to Ukraine to aid Russian offensive efforts in northern Kharkiv region.
Supplanting Wagner at scale following losses such as those accrued in the recent ambush would likely involve re-deploying some Africa Corps fighters to Mali away from the frontline in Ukraine, and the Russian military command likely does not see completely supplanting Wagner in Mali or elsewhere in the Sahel as a priority effort at this time.
