Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has claimed it was involved in an ambush that killed fighters from Russia’s Wagner group in the west African nation of Mali, thousands of miles away from the frontline in Ukraine.

A Telegram channel linked to the Wagner leadership on Monday admitted the group had suffered heavy losses during fighting in Mali last week.

It said Wagner and the Malian armed forces had “fought fierce battles” over a five-day period against a coalition of Tuareg separatist forces and jihadi groups, who had used heavy weapons, drones and suicide bombers. Numerous Wagner fighters, including a commander, Sergei Shevchenko, were killed, the channel said.

Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, said on Monday that “the rebels received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals”.

Yusov did not say whether Ukrainian military personnel were involved in the fighting or were present in the country. He said the agency “won’t discuss the details at the moment, but there will be more to come”.

The Mali government, which has been fighting various insurgencies in the north of the country for more than a decade, requested help from Wagner after a military junta took power in 2020.

In May last year, the US imposed sanctions on the head of Wagner in Mali, accusing the group of using its operation there as a conduit for military equipment for the war in Ukraine.

The Kyiv Post on Monday published a photograph it said showed Malian rebels holding a Ukrainian flag, which it said had been authenticated by a defence source in Kyiv. It was not possible to verify the image independently.

Ukrainian forces are believed to be active in Sudan, another place where Wagner troops have been heavily involved in fighting, in a further sign that Kyiv’s fight with Moscow has taken on a global dimension.