The coordinated offensive that erupted across Mali on the morning of 25 April has shattered the military junta’s carefully cultivated image of control. Fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), acting in open concert with the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), seized Kidal, the symbolic heart of northern insurgency, and struck at targets as far south as Kati, a garrison town just fifteen kilometres from the capital Bamako. Among the first casualties was Defence Minister Sadio Camara, a foundational pillar of the junta who was killed in the attack on Kati. His death laid bare the operational paralysis of both the Malian armed forces and their Russian Africa Corps partners, who were forced to barricade themselves inside their bases as insurgents roamed freely through towns once deemed secure.

Within hours, Colonel Assimi Goïta, Mali’s self-proclaimed president, moved to consolidate what remained of his authority. By appointing himself minister of defence, he not only filled the vacuum left by Camara but also signalled that the junta’s survival now depends on his personal control over the security apparatus. Viewed from Bamako, this concentration of power is as much an admission of weakness as it is a bid for unity: the military hierarchy has been humiliated, its Russian allies proven incapable of protecting even senior commanders, and the northern territories are once again slipping from state grasp.

From New York, the United Nations has registered “grave concern” over reports of extrajudicial executions carried out by government forces in the wake of the attacks. Such accounts, if confirmed, suggest a regime lashing out against suspected collaborators in a desperate attempt to reassert dominance. Analysts in London note that these allegations further erode the junta’s already thin reservoir of international legitimacy, complicating any future diplomatic settlement or humanitarian access to the conflict zones.

Moscow’s reaction has been characteristically understated. The Kremlin has offered a message of non-interference, urging Malian authorities to resolve the crisis internally. But the subtext, read across European chancelleries, is unmistakable: the Africa Corps deployment, once touted as a rapid solution to Sahelian instability, has failed its first serious test. French strategists, watching from Paris, see in this collapse a vindication of their earlier warnings against outsourcing security to mercenary forces with no stake in local reconciliation.

The immediate future hinges on whether the JNIM-FLA alliance can hold together long enough to exploit its momentum. The two factions share a tactical goal — dismantling the junta’s control — but their long-term visions of Azawad diverge sharply. A fragmentation of the coalition or a counter-offensive propped up by Russian air power could yet stabilise the junta’s position. More likely, however, is a protracted fragmentation of the Malian state, with Goïta’s increasingly personal rule becoming a magnet for further rebellion, and the Sahel descending into the very chaos his coup was meant to prevent.