Russia's top diplomat promises more military support for Burkina Faso as he tours West Africa

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Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Burkina Faso Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré smile posing for a photo during their meeting in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. Moscow pledged more support to Burkina Faso in fighting extremist military groups, as the Russian foreign minister continues his whirlwind tour of West Africa in an attempt to fill in the vacuum left by the region's traditional Western partners. 

Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday pledged more support to Burkina Faso in fighting militant groups as he pressed his whirlwind tour of West Africa in an attempt to fill a vacuum left by the region's traditional Western partners.

Sergey Lavrov spoke at a news conference in the country's capital of Ouagadougou while on the third leg of his latest Africa trip, after Guinea and the Republic of Congo.

Russia is seeking to shore up support from the region amid Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A number of African countries in recent years have expressed growing frustration with their traditional Western partners such as France and the United States.

“Russian instructors have been working here and their number will increase,” Lavrov said, adding that Russia has been helping train Burkina Faso’s military and law enforcement personnel. “We have supplied and will continue to supply military equipment to help strengthen Burkina Faso’s defense capability and allow it to eliminate the remaining terrorist groups.”

Lavrov said he appreciated the “objective and fair” position of Burkina Faso on the war in Ukraine. “For our part, we are ready to provide our support for the just cause of Africans who are trying to free themselves from neo-colonial influence."

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Burkina Faso, a landlocked nation of 20 million, has been ravaged in the past eight years by violence from extremist groups loosely affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, and from the fighting between government forces and the militants.

The country also went through two coups in just 10 months, the second last year after which a military junta threw out French forces and turned to Russia for security support. However, the junta has struggled to contain the security and humanitarian crisis.

Burkina Faso has topped the list of the world’s biggest neglected crises for the second year in a row, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council. A record 6.3 million out of 20 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2024, the aid organization said, with many on the brink of starvation. Two million people remain internally displaced, about 60% of them children. Many have been traumatized, but resources to help them are scarce.

Jan Egeland, the agency’s secretary-general, told The Associated Press that Western governments have been withdrawing financial aid from Burkina Faso and other countries in the Sahel, a region encompassing states on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, contributing to the vicious circle of poverty, violence, and extremism.

“The disengagement of the West is bringing them no influence in the region," Egeland said. "But I haven’t seen Russia helping us in our humanitarian work or doing development programs, so the Russian approach is not going to bring relief that the people need.”

But, he added, “I see Russian flags in Burkina Faso. I don’t see European flags.”

Later Wednesday, Lavrov arrived in Chad, which has also made the list of the world’s neglected crises.

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Russia's Lavrov takes anti-western tour to Chad

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday arrived in Chad, the last leg of a tour of African nations marked by strong anti-Western sentiment and the promise of greater military backing against jihadists.

The veteran diplomat has offered to strengthen economic, trade and above all military cooperation with Guinea, Congo and Burkina Faso, his first stops.

The Kremlin has seen relations with the West plummet since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has doubled down on efforts to boost its influence in Africa, replacing western powers, above all France.

"It's not peace that the Westerners want to preserve," in Ukraine, Lavrov told journalists, but "the following principles: you have to choose between supporting Russia or supporting" Ukraine.

"And if you support Russia, you will be punished," he said.

Chad is one of the last pieces Moscow is trying to put together in the Sahel region, which not long ago was France's sphere of influence.

France has seen its troops dismissed from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso by their military regimes since 2022.

Mercenaries from Russia's Wagner group have arrived, all presented as military instructors.

Paris still deploys about 1,000 soldiers in Chad, and says it intends to stay there, if in reduced numbers.

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- Russian military instructors -

Rumours of armed Russians working alongside Chadian soldiers, notably in the south, are rife on social media.

But officially for now, N'Djamena is the last hold-out against the Russian influx.

Lavrov held talks with Chad's General Mahamat Idriss Deby who has just been elected president after three years at the head of a military junta.

Deby paid a visit to Moscow in January, raising questions about his plans to broaden his international allies.

"For six months we've seen a veritable warming of relations between Russian and Chad," African studies expert Vsevolod Sviridov told AFP in Moscow.

Paris has remained solidly behind Deby even though other western capitals have voiced concern at the contested election and the violent crackdown on all opposition.

"Our friendship with Chad will not influence its relations with France," Lavrov said in N'Djamena.

"France has a different approach: either you are with us or you are against us," he added.

In Burkina Faso on Wednesday, Lavrov said the number of Russian military instructors there "will increase".

"At the same time, we are training in Russia representatives of the armed forces and security forces of Burkina Faso," he said in the capital Ouagadougou.

- 'Destroy terrorists' -

Jihadist rebels affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have waged a grinding insurgency since 2015 in Burkina Faso that has killed thousands of people and displaced two million.

"I have no doubt that thanks to this cooperation, the pockets of terrorists which remain in Burkina Faso will be destroyed," the Russian minister said.

In Guinea on Monday, Lavrov congratulated the country for being "in the avant-guard of the decolonisation process".

On Tuesday, in Congo, Lavrov took aim at the West's support of Ukraine and its supposed "objectives" elsewhere, such as Libya.

Last July, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited African leaders to a summit in Saint Petersburg where he said they agreed to promote a multipolar world order and to fight neo-colonialism.

Putin hailed the "commitment of all our states to the formation of a just and democratic multipolar world order".

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