Russian troops deploy to Mali's Timbuktu after French exit
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Loading... - Ahmed Musa
- 07 Jan 2022
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Mali’s army spokesperson has said Russian soldiers have deployed to the northern city of Timbuktu to train Malian forces at a base vacated by French troops last month amid persistent insecurity in a country where large swaths of territory are out of the government’s control.
The Malian government said late last year that “Russian trainers” had arrived in the country, but Bamako and Moscow have so far provided few details on the deployment, including on how many soldiers are involved or the Russian troops’ precise mission.
On December 23, a group of Western countries led by former colonial power France, which in 2013 intervened militarily to help push back advancing armed groups that threatened to seize the whole of Mali, sharply criticised what they said was the deployment of Russian mercenaries working for the controversial Wagner Group.
Mali’s government has denied this, saying the Russian troops are in the country as part of a bilateral agreement.
“We had new acquisitions of planes and equipment from them [the Russians],” the Mali army spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday. “It costs a lot less to train us on site than for us to go over there … What is the harm?”
He did not say how many Russians had been sent to Timbuktu.
Residents told Reuters that uniformed Russian men were seen driving around town but could not say how many there were.
The Russian forces’ arrival in Mali follows deployments to several other African hotspots, part of what analysts say is an attempt by Moscow to recover influence on the continent after a long absence following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
Mali has been plagued by a conflict that began as a separatist movement in the north of the country in 2012, but devolved into a multitude of armed groups jockeying for control in the central and northern regions. Read More…
