Deploring the “alarming” security situation in the Sahel, with attacks committed by “terrorist groups financed and trained by the West,” the Senegalese organizations expressed solidarity with the Malian armed forces and with the Alliance of Sahel States, a recently created collective defense alliance made up of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which is fighting against the terrorist groups now aided by Ukraine.

Senegalese diplomacy, meanwhile, severely criticized the publication of the video by the Ukrainian Embassy, considering it “unequivocal and unreserved support for the terrorist attack perpetrated in northern Mali by Tuareg rebels and members of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims against the Malian armed forces.”

What’s more, Sénégal “rejects terrorism in all its forms and cannot accept, on its territory and in any way whatsoever, comments and gestures that glorify terrorism, especially with the aim of destabilizing a sister country like Mali.”

Similarly, Burkina Faso criticized Ukraine and “called on the international community to assume its responsibility” in the face of Kiev’s choice to collaborate with terrorism “in a global context where there is unanimity on the need to fight this scourge.”

The Burkinabe government called on “peace-loving African countries, in particular, to condemn these subversive actions that threaten the stability of the continent.” And it called on Ukraine to “get its act together” and refrain from aiding the terrorists who “are massacring, killing, raping and pillaging” in northern Mali and throughout the region.