The victims, including Ukrainian national Yuri Yurov, were abducted by an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Niger, Moscow has said Russian forces deployed in Mali have rescued two employees of a Russian geological exploration company who had been held hostage in the Sahel for nearly two years, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced on Tuesday. According to an official statement, the freed captives – Russian citizen Oleg Greta, 64, and Ukrainian national Yuri Yurov, 56 – were abducted by the Al-Qaeda affiliate, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), in 2024 in Niger’s Tillaberi region. “As a result of a special operation conducted by the Africa Corps in the Republic of Mali, employees of a Russian geological exploration company captured in July 2024 in Niger by the terrorist group… were freed,” the Russian Defense Ministry wrote in its Telegram channel. The ministry said both men were found in poor health and suffering from severe physical exhaustion following their detention.…