After Russia rejected a renewal of the sanctions, which targeted anyone breaking or delaying a 2015 peace settlement, impeding humanitarian delivery, abusing human rights, and enlisting children as combatants, the sanctions in Mali will be lifted on Thursday, August 31.
Independent UN sanctions monitors have been informing the UN Security Council that violence against women and other "grave human rights abuses" are being used by Mali's military and its foreign security allies, thought to be the Wagner mercenary group from Russia, to foment terrorism. In the past, the UN Security Council, of which Russia is a member, decided to continue independent
However, on Thursday, 13 members of the Security Council voted in favor of a resolution to extend UN sanctions and independent monitoring for an additional year, which was authored by France and the United Arab Emirates. However, Russia used its veto, while China chose to abstain.
Russia, on the other hand, suggested immediately eliminating the independent monitoring but still extending UN sanctions in Mali for one final year. Only Russia cast a yes vote; Japan cast a negative vote, while the other 13 members chose to abstain.
The UN Security Council was informed by the deputy US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, that Russia wants to discontinue the independent monitoring "to stifle publication of uncomfortable truths about Wagner's actions in Mali, which require attention."
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's deputy UN ambassador, responded that it was conjecture and smacked of "paranoia," adding that Russia was "upholding the interests of the affected country - Mali, as the council is supposed to do."
Additionally, the US has charged Wagner, which has roughly 1,000 men in Mali, with orchestrating the junta's sudden request for a 13,000-strong UN peacekeeping force to leave. The ten-year operation is scheduled to end in December.
In order to combat an Islamist insurgency, Wagner partnered up with the junta that took control of Mali in coups in 2020 and 2021.
Following the death of Wagner commander Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane accident in Russia last week, President Vladimir Putin ordered Wagner soldiers to swear loyalty to the Russian government.
This month, the military coup in Mali requested the lifting of the sanctions in a letter to the Security Council.
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