Fighters from the CSP-DPA group shot down two helicopters of the Wagner private military company in Mali.

Russian soldier Alexei Voevoda wrote about this in his Voevoda Veshchayet Telegram channel.

The incident took place yesterday during a battle in In Azzraf near the Algerian city of Tin Zawatin.

The military shared the details of the involvement of two helicopters, when one pilot was killed:

“The commander of an Mi-8 helicopter was killed by a large-caliber machine gun. The helicopter was taken out and landed at a safe distance. Mi-24, vortex ring. The crew is alive and well.”

In other words, both helicopters were taken out of the battle as a result of accurate shooting by the CSP-DPA fighters.

This is not the first loss of aircraft of the PMC Wagner in Mali: In 2021, al-Qaeda-affiliated militants seized a Russian mercenary base and damaged a Mi-24 attack helicopter there.

As for yesterday’s episode, when two helicopters were shot down, the first photo of the attack helicopter that was located between the ruins of the house appeared on the Internet:

At the same time, a number of users on social network X (formerly Twitter) responded to this photo (examples No1, No2, No3, No4) as fake and that it was old, citing a screenshot of an article from Africa News about Nigeria:

However, finding the original news item Nigeria: cinq morts dans le crash d’un helicopter de l’armée lors d’une attaque de Boko Haram on the Africa News website, one can see that it is illustrated with a completely different image:

That is, this can be considered a bot farm’s fake news to cover up the loss of the helicopter to an African audience. However, the publication of this photo by the Russian military brings misunderstanding to these actions.

The total losses, according to the militants of the PMC Wagner, amount to more than 80 killed and about 15 captured by the CSP-DPA group.