Hello everyone,
Welcome to my inaugural podcast Eyes on Eurasia with Glen Howard. In this episode, I discuss the recent July 27 attack on Russia’s Wagner forces in Mali by the al-Qaeda-affiliated JNIM militant group. The attack caused an estimated 82 Russian deaths and certainly ranks as one of the worst defeats for Putin’s Afrika Korps since Wagner mercenaries began operating in Africa.
No two experts are better qualified to discuss this topic thanJacob Zenn and Sergey Sukhankin. Jacob Zenn ranks as one of the leading experts in the world on African militant movements and insurgencies. In 2020 he wrote a groundbreaking book on the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram entitled Unmasking Boko Haram: Exploring Global Jihad in Nigeria. Sergey Sukhankin is equally qualified due to his extensive writings on Wagner’s overseas operations not just in Africa but other parts of the world. In 2020 he published a landmark study entitled War by Other Means: Russia’s Use of Private Military Contractors at Home and Abroad.
