A surprising September meeting in Shannon Airport of two leaders from Ukraine and Sudan has been cast in a new light, following revelations over the last week in the Ukrainian media.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office released a picture of him meeting General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council, in a room in Shannon Airport on 23 September.

Mr Zelensky was returning from Canada and the US, where he had addressed the United Nations General Assembly.

The text accompanying the image described the meeting as "unscheduled," saying "we discussed common security challenges, namely the activities of illegal armed groups financed by Russia".

No Irish Government representatives would have been present for what the Department of Foreign Affairs described as a "technical stopover".

The meeting surprised many, but the specifics of the reason for it have become somewhat clearer with the publication by the Kyiv Post of footage it said it obtained from sources in the Ukrainian intelligence services.

Two videos show what appear to be Ukrainian special forces soldiers operating in Sudan. According to sources quoted, the footage had been filmed "in the last two weeks".

Watch: Video posted by the Kyiv Post

Combined with the details of the meeting at Shannon Airport, it appears to confirm suspicions initially raised by CNN, on 20 September: that Ukrainian special forces have begun operating on the ground in Sudan to help the Transitional Sovereign Council in its fight against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who have been supported by Russia's Wagner mercenaries.

"We know Ukraine has had quite a significant Wagner problem and Sudan does as well. So, there is this common enemy between the two countries," says Chris York, Head of News for the Kyiv Post, who worked on the exclusive story related to the videos.

The first of the two videos is shot at night on an infrared aerial camera. It shows what appears to be a small unit of men surrounding a compound in Sudan and using hand grenades and rocket launchers against others inside buildings.

The second video appears to be footage of drone or airstrikes targeting individuals on the ground. No attacking troops are visible in that video.

"On the face of it, a video of Ukrainian troops operating in Sudan is just a bit baffling," Mr York told Prime Time.

"There's a war raging in Ukraine, and these guys - you would have to assume, are highly trained individuals - special forces, so what are they doing in Sudan if perhaps they could be better used to fight against Russia in Ukraine?"

"But we have a very good network of trusted sources. So, we didn't have any kind of doubts on that side of thing," he added.

The Ukrainian government will neither officially confirm nor deny the details of the story, but some observers are taking the videos as evidence that Ukraine’s military is following through on a comment made in April.

Then, Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's military intelligence chief, told the American network PBS "any perpetrator that committed any war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine ... will be found and eliminated in any part of the world".

The videos also build on other footage that has emerged from Sudan since the meeting in Shannon Airport.

On 6 October, video clips appeared on Ukrainian telegram channels and social media of fair-skinned men operating seemingly as sniper teams in an arid mountainous area.

Accompanying text on certain channels described the footage as "Ukrainian special forces conducting operations in Sudan against the Russian Wagner private military contractors".

Watch: Some of the footage posted to Ukrainian social channels on 6 October

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Bellingcat, the investigative website that specialises in analysing video and images, concluded that the footage was taken in the Al-Markhiyat mountains just outside the city of Omdurman, north of the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

However, it said "no firm determination can yet be made from open sources that the footage shows Ukrainian special forces operations".

The Kyiv Post report appears to develop upon that.

Ukraine's motivation to disrupt Wagner’s operations in Sudan may be based on the scale of financial interests the mercenary group has in the east African country.

"It operates a gold mine," said Mr York. "They're making a lot of money there."

"That is money which helps Russia circumvent sanctions and helps fund the war in Ukraine. So, when you think about that context, all of a sudden it makes a lot more sense for Ukraine to be fighting beyond the borders of its own country: if they can stop one of the Russian government's quite substantial revenue streams, then that can only help hinder Russia's operations in Ukraine as well."

Wagner began deploying to Sudan during the rule of former president Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted from power in 2019 following widespread protests across Sudan.

"[Its] role at the outset was to secure the mines, to support the extraction of gold, while also providing weapons and training to both the army and [Sudan’s] paramilitary forces," according to Ahmed Soliman, senior researcher with the Africa Programme at Chatham House.

Since April this year, Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF), controlled by Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council, and the largest paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been at war with each other. The leaders of both previously worked together as part of a ruling military junta.

The fighting, which has displaced six million people in Sudan and left half the population - near 25m people - in need of aid, has brought "unprecedented destruction and humanitarian suffering" to many parts of the country, Mr Soliman said.

Just this week, the United Nations described the situation in the country as "catastrophic."

Wagner under its former leader Yevgeny Prigozhin had formed a closer relationship with the RSF and its commander, General Hemedti, than with General Al-Burhan and Sudan’s army, according to Mr Soliman.

The RSF paramilitary controls a large swathe of the country. Local media has been reporting on fierce clashes recently near Omdurman, where the videos purporting to show Ukrainian troops were recorded.

Wagner’s role still involves securing the mines and extracting gold, but now they are only "providing weapons and training for the RSF," Mr Soliman said.

"Wagner has been involved in facilitating that movement of gold from Sudan to neighbouring countries and then to Russia, so that it can extract the resource for its own interests. Most recently, in terms of the fighting that has taken place in Ukraine," he added.