Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree on Jan. 9 authorizing the deployment of Ukrainian personnel to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali.
The decree, which was published by the Presidential Administration late in the evening, reads that the national contingent to the African nation will consist of up to 20 members of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Ukraine’s participation in the UN mission in Mali will “promote international peace and security and serves the national interests of Ukraine,” the decree states.
The UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) was established in late April 2013 under UN Security Council resolution 2100 following a rebellion by Tuareg people in 2012, who sought to create their own independent state of Azawad in northern Mali.
Hostilities against government forces escalated, with the Mali military ousting the country’s president, Amadou Toumani Toure, in March 2012 over his weak handing of the conflict, as well as with the rise of Islamist militant groups linked to the Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
In early 2013, the war saw a boots-on-the-ground intervention by France and soldiers from neighboring African Union countries to support the Malian government against the Islamists.
The rebel groups were laregely defeated by 2015, and the government signed a peace deal with the Tuaregs on April 15, 2015, although low-level guerrilla fighting and sporadic terror attacks still take place.
The peacekeeping mission was officially deployed “to support the transitional authorities of Mali in the stabilization of the country,” according to the UN. Besides, the mission’s mandate includes the protection of civilians, supporting the national political process, rebuilding the country’s security sector, and enforcing human rights.
As of November 2018, the mission had a strength of 15,450 personnel, including 11,632 soldiers, 1,767 police, 1,421 civilian employees, 446 staff officers, 146 UN volunteers, and 38 military experts.
The mission force is made up mostly of the African Union nations like Chad, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Niger, Egypt, or Guinea, but there are also a number of non-African countries, like Bangladesh, China, and Germany.
Since its inception, the mission has sustained 177 fatalities, according to UN figures.
The deployment to Mali will be the fourth ongoing UN operation currently supported by Ukraine. Around 40 Ukrainian troops are participating in peacekeeping activities in Kosovo (since 1999 as part of the UN’s KFOR contingent), along with 56 in Ivory Coast (since 2011), and 13 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (since 2012).
Ukraine has participated in over 20 UN peacekeeping missions since gaining independence in 1991, helping to settle conflicts all over the world, including in Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kuwait.
In early 2018, Ukraine wound up its mission in Liberia, which had been going on since 2003.
According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, up to 44,000 Ukrainian servicemen have participated in UN missions since 1991, with 54 of them being killed while serving abroad.
