The arrival of Russian attack helicopters and other heavy equipment in the Sahel over the last two years has been one of the most consequential shifts in the region’s security landscape. Moscow’s logistical commitment to Bamako and its partners has included visible deliveries of combat helicopters and armored vehicles intended to give Sahelian juntas a decisive edge against insurgent groups reliant on dispersed, low-signature tactics. These deliveries are part of a broader reorientation of Russian engagement in the Sahel that accelerated after high level visits and public pledges of support.
At the strategic level the implications are straightforward. Attack helicopters like the Mil Mi-28 are force multipliers for ground-centric regimes: they provide precision fires, close air support, and the intimidation effect that can shape battlefields and political calculations. But helicopters are also fragile in a modern contested environment. Their survivability depends on integrated sensors, robust air defenses, assured logistics and crew training. In the absence of those supporting elements, even advanced rotorcraft can become trophies for well prepared opponents. That dynamic has repeatedly surfaced in other theatres where helicopters were exposed without adequate protective nets.
Open source reporting up to November 18, 2025 does not provide a widely verified chain of evidence showing multiple Mi-28 shootdowns in the Sahel akin to what analysts have documented for helicopters in high intensity conflicts elsewhere. What is, however, clearly documented is both the presence of Russian rotary and fixed wing systems in Mali and the region’s historical vulnerability to low altitude strikes and anti-aircraft fire. Sahelian actors and nonstate groups have previously downed or damaged helicopters operating at low altitude. Those precedents underscore how attrition can accumulate quickly once aircraft operate routinely in permissive but increasingly contested airspace.
If Mi-28s were to be lost in numbers the operational consequences would be immediate. First, the kinetic capacity that Russian helicopters provide would be degraded, forcing ground commanders to shift back to more vulnerable or less accurate options such as artillery, light attack aircraft, or motorised infantry raids. Second, a visible string of losses would impose political costs on host regimes that have tied their legitimacy to Russian security guarantees. Moscow would face a dilemma: commit more resources to protect helicopters, accept a reduction of tangible effects on the battlefield, or recalibrate the model of influence it is exporting to the Sahel. Historical patterns suggest Moscow prefers to sustain presence through equipment and personnel rather than withdraw; but sustaining modern attack helicopter operations at distance is resource intensive and logistically demanding.
The operational drivers behind an air superiority lapse in the Sahel are predictable. The region suffers from sparse integrated air surveillance, limited ground based air defense coverage, constrained maintenance ecosystems for advanced Western or Russian platforms, and a growing proliferation of inexpensive countermeasures for small units including MANPADS and loitering munitions. Those conditions create a paradox. Helicopters are deployed to project power across large, under-governed spaces exactly because they can reach remote pockets quickly. Yet those same characteristics expose helicopters to ambush and attrition when operations lack layered protection and resilient logistics.
A strategic read on the likely cascade of effects if Russian Mi-28s suffer attrition in the Sahel is threefold. Militarily, local air superiority would be contested rather than assured. Politically, host governments that have bet on visible Russian support would find their bargaining power with opponents, regional neighbors and external patrons reduced. Geopolitically, losses would complicate Moscow’s model of influence by increasing its onshore requirements for maintenance, air defense, and personnel rotation. That in turn raises the financial and diplomatic costs of the relationship for both Russia and its Sahel partners.
Practical mitigations exist but they are not trivial. First, any sustainable rotary wing posture requires a protective ensemble: persistent ISR to detect threats, short and medium range air defenses to deter MANPADS and loitering munitions, hardened basing and dispersed logistics, and rigorous maintenance chains. Second, crew training and tactics must adapt to local threat profiles; low and slow flight in contested corridors has to be minimised. Third, transparency and accountability around foreign-supplied lethal capabilities should be increased to reduce the risk that advanced platforms become liabilities in domestic political contests. Absent these measures, attrition will not be a one off problem but a chronic drain on the combat effectiveness that such systems promise.
For outside actors that care about regional stability there are clear policy responses. Supporting indigenous air surveillance and passive defenses is higher impact than attempting to substitute aircraft for deeper systemic weaknesses. Donors can prioritise radar coverage, electronic warfare resilience, and training in integrated air defense. Sanctions and export controls remain necessary levers to influence the flow of advanced systems into fragile theatres, but they must be paired with constructive investments in regional security institutions that lower the demand for substitutive airpower solutions. The calculus is simple. Helicopters alone cannot create sustainable security; they can amplify capabilities for a time but they will also amplify vulnerability if deployed without the infrastructure that modern air operations require.
To be clear, the central fact for analysts is not whether an Mi-28 was or was not lost on a specific date. The important reality is structural. Advanced attack helicopters change the battlefield only as long as they are supported, defended and sustainable. In the Sahel those prerequisites are not yet assured. If attrition among Russian-supplied helicopters accelerates it will be a signal that tactical gains have outpaced strategic endurance, and that guarantors of security may find themselves without the air superiority they believed they had purchased.