The rebels swept out of the desert, armed to the teeth on motorbikes and pick-ups, and on to the dusty streets of Kidal at dawn. Within hours, they had forced the few dozen Russian paramilitaries tasked with holding on to the remote town in northern Mali into a choice: surrender or die.
The Russian forces were soon beating a retreat as ethnic Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters together began a blistering offensive over the weekend against cities and towns across Mali, whose military regime turned to Moscow five years earlier in an attempt to turn the tide in its battle with the insurgents.
But the devastating defeat in Kidal has exposed Russia’s failure to stabilise Mali and has called into question both the future of its African military adventurism and survival of the pro-Russian government in Bamako, the country’s capital.