BellingcatThe Wagner group's presence in Sudan is well-documented. But recent videos showing fair-skinned men handling sniper rifles are fuelling rumours of Ukrainian mercenaries supporting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). What do the videos actually show us? https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/07/examining-videos-of-suspected-ukrainian-riflemen-in-sudan/?utm_source=mastodon
On October 6, 2023 a video started circulating of alleged Ukrainian fighters in Sudan. It was subsequently shared by Telegram channels such as .@truexanewsua and Ukrainian sites such as babel.ua. https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1710241167751671844
Clash Report on X
#BREAKING Video footage confirms presence of Ukrainian special forces in Sudan. Ukrainian special forces conduct operations in Sudan against the Russian Wagner PMC and their local allies from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who tried to stage a coup d'état in April.
Babel UA claimed their sources in Ukrainian intelligence said the men were Ukrainians fighting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who were backed by the Russians via Private Military Company Wagner.
The video is essentially several pieces of footage stitched together. It starts with a man in camouflage, shooting a sniper rifle from the top of a mountain just west of Omdurman. Bellingcat was able to geolocate his position. (15.708352, 32.426962)
The mountains in the back can be matched to mountains to the north of this location using Google Earth Pro.
At this stage, our team can't confirm whether this soldier is Ukrainian. The camouflage pattern on his uniform resembles the commercially available Multicam pattern. This pattern has reportedly been used by multiple militaries.
Weapons expert @CalibreObscura told Bellingcat that the precise model of the firearm could likely not be determined, partly due to the mesh and partly due to the quality of the footage.
We geolocated later footage showing four men lying behind a rifle to the same location as the one individual sniper who is also seen in the group footage
Analysis of the drone footage included in this compilation further confirms that the events depicted are taking place in Sudan.
These geolocations show that the drone strikes depicted are different from those identified by CNN in September, in an investigation which found that Ukraine was “likely” behind strikes on Wagner-backed special forces in Sudan. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/19/africa/ukraine-military-sudan-wagner-cmd-intl/index.html .
One example is of this location where a drone strike hit on camera. We matched it to this location on Google Maps (15.661269, 32.489888), in the Wad Nubawi district of Omdurman.
In short, the footage of the riflemen and the drone strikes is new and was clearly filmed in Sudan. However, more work is needed to verify the allegiance of the armed men through open sources.
If you want to take part in the discussion on this identification, you can join our discord community https://discord.gg/bellingcat
Twittr-depr1@Bellingcat Thanks for what you are doing!
(Ps. A very warm welcome here on Mastodon)
(Ps. A very warm welcome here on Mastodon)
Børge@Bellingcat You're doing impressive work!