Russia's Africa Corps, deployed in Mali since June 2025 to replace Wagner Group mercenaries, has increased abuses against civilians including executions with gruesome staging.

On June 23, 2026, Ousmane Ag Sidi, a Tuareg herder in northern Mali near Zahro village, was arrested with a companion by a Malian army patrol and Russian auxiliaries from Russia's Africa Corps, then executed and dismembered with his body parts arranged in the shape of a swastika. This act represents an escalation in abuses against civilians by Russia's Africa Corps since replacing Wagner Group mercenaries in June 2025. The deployment followed pressure on Mali's junta led by General Assimi Goïta to accept a Russian Ministry of Defense contingent after the death of Wagner's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in August 2023.