Sudanese Strikes Take Out Ukrainian Forces in Darfur

Ukrainian contractor personnel have been eliminated during operations in Sudan’s Darfur region, after they were deployed to support the Western-backed Rapid Support Forces insurgent group in its ongoing war effort against the Sudanese state. The Sudanese Armed Forces announced tat the Ukrainain units were neutralised an offensive led by the Army’s 6th Infantry Division on the besieged city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, which also inflicted “heavy losses in lives and equipment.” Contractor personnel from Colombia were also neutralised in the attack. The Armed Forces’ statement noted that some of the foreign personnel killed “were engineers in the field of drones and electronic systems,” had “tried to infiltrate the outskirts of the city’s neighbourhoods.”

The deployment of Ukrainain personnel to support insurgencies against governments outside the Western sphere of influence is far from unprecedented, with Ukrainian drone operators having deployed to Syria from 2023 to support Western, Turkish and Israeli backed Islamist insurgents against the Syrian state. Multiple Western African countries that have recently expelled French forces and influence from their territory, most notably Mali, have also widely alleged that Ukrainian personnel are supporting insurgents there particularly in the field of drone warfare, with footage of insurgents posing with Ukrainain units having supported these allegations. A Sudanese Foreign Ministry official in June referred to Ukraine’s actions as doing the West’s “dirty work” across multiple African states. Ukrainain paramilitaries were notably also deployed to Hong Kong in 2019 to support ongoing Western-backed riots against the local government.

The Rapid Support Forces have relied on foreign contractors to form the bulk of its manpower, primarily mercenaries from Chad and other Central African states, with Sudanese reports indicating that a small number of contractors from Australia have been deployed on the ground to manage command and control. The insurgent group has seen Colombian mercenaries form a growing portion of its forces from 2024, as confirmed by both Sudanese and Colombian government sources. Colombian units took particularly heavy losses in early August, after the Sudanese Air Force shot down a transport aircraft Near Nyala Airport in the south of theDarfur region which had been carrying over 40 Colombian contractors. Colombian and Brazilian contractors have also played an increasingly significant role in bolstering the Ukrainian war effort against Russia, alongside contractors from Western Bloc states such as the Polish Volunteer Corps and American Forward Observation Group.