Peter Fabricius
Russia appears to be intensifying its offensive – on various fronts – to gain influence in Africa, and its enemy Ukraine is fighting back, threatening to make the continent a major proxy battlefield.
Minor military skirmishes elsewhere in Africa exploded last week when Moscow’s Wagner (now Africa Corps) took heavy casualties in a battle with Tuareg separatists and jihadists in Tinzaouaten, Mali. This was a setback for the Kremlin, which appeared to be expanding its presence or at least rebuffing Western efforts to regain lost African ground.
Russian soldiers had already begun filling the vacuum left by the United States (US) with the withdrawal of its last troops this week from Agadez, Niger. The US base had been used to monitor Islamist extremists throughout the Sahel. In Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s Central African Republic – effectively a client state of Moscow’s for some years – Wagner operatives scuppered attempts by the US security outfit Bancroft Global Development to establish itself in Bangui in January.
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