Mali: Russians presented as more and more instructors

Many Russian instructors have been deployed in Mali in recent weeks, especially on the Timbuktu base (north) recently left by French forces, said Malian military officials, in the midst of a quarrel with international partners over the deployment of a group. of Russian mercenaries.

One of these officials responded in the affirmative to the possibility that these instructors now number about 400 across the country.

Read also In the Sahel, Operation Barkhane is changing to escape the trap of stalemate

Russian soldiers were already present in the country, to ensure the maintenance of equipment for example, but they were hardly visible as such.

The assumed arrival of a certain number of Russian instructors feeds the widely shared suspicion of the Malian authorities' recourse, despite their denials, to the services of the sulphurous Russian paramilitary group Wagner.

This suspicion is fueled by the supposedly blurred lines between Wagner and Moscow.

A Western security official, an African diplomat stationed in Bamako and a local elected official reported to AFP the presence of Russian mercenaries in Mali, on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject.

A deep security and political crisis

About fifteen Western partners of Mali, a country plunged into a deep security and political crisis since the outbreak of independence and jihadist insurgencies in 2012, have already reported at the end of December that Wagner had started to deploy, with the support of Moscow according to them. The Malian authorities resulting from the double putsch of August 2020 and May 2021 have so far denied not only such a deployment, but the conclusion of an agreement, and invoke the presence of Russian trainers as well as European trainers.

The apparent strengthening of cooperation with Russia coincides with the reconfiguration of the French system and the planned reduction of the Barkhane anti-jihadist force, which will drop from around 5,000 soldiers in the Sahel in the summer of 2021 to around 3,000 in the summer of 2022. Barkhane recently handed over three bases in the north to the Malians, the most recent in Timbuktu in mid-December.

Russian instructors recently arrived in Timbuktu to accompany the delivery of Russian helicopters, a Malian official said.

Russians and non-Russians

Another Malian official, also on condition of anonymity, confirmed the presence of "

". “

”, said the first person in charge. A Western security official spoke of "

".

He described two recent incidents caused by this presence: the injuries of a member of Wagner, according to him, affected by the explosion of a mine in the center of the country at the beginning of the week; and the almost unprecedented protest by the Malian authorities against the overflight of the Sofara military camp (center) by an apparatus of the UN force in Mali (Minusma). No official reaction was obtained on the Russian side. The Kremlin assures us that Wagner is a private company with which he has nothing to do. One of the Malian officials confirmed that Minusma had been seized "

"If it happens again, we will take our responsibilities," he said.

"Explosive devices injured Russian mercenaries"

Asked about the incident in which a Russian was allegedly injured, the spokesperson for the French staff, Colonel Pascal Ianni, said he could not comment.

"

," he told reporters.

But an influential elected from a locality in central Mali assured that "

".

“

, "Russian or non-Russian, working for them," he said.

A senior French diplomat said on Friday that the dimensions and impact of Wagner's activities were being assessed.

This deployment remains "

" because "

", he said, without automatically leading to a French withdrawal.

” junta

called on Wagner “

”, he said.