After Burkina Faso ousts French, Russia’s Wagner may arrive
Just weeks after Burkina Faso’s junta ousted hundreds of French troops, signs appeared that the West African country could be moving closer to Russia, including the mercenary outfit, the Wagner Group.
One signal was Burkina Faso authorities requested in February, nearly $30 million in gold from its mines to be handed over for “public necessity.”
It´s unclear what the gold was used for but some suspect the gold could be used to hire mercenaries from the Wagner Group that already is entrenched in other troubled African countries like Mali and Central African Republic.
“It might be a coincidence that the Burkinabe demanded the purchase of the gold right after they kicked out the French and started moving closer to the Russians,” said William Linder, a retired CIA officer and head of 14 North Strategies, an Africa-focused risk advisory. “Still, it strikes fear among investors that the state will renege on existing agreements and disadvantage established industrial miners to pay for Russian military contractors.”
Burkina Faso’s government denies hiring Wagner mercenaries but the government is expecting Russian instructors to come train soldiers on how to use equipment recently purchased from Russia, said Mamadou Drabo, executive secretary for Save Burkina, a civic group that supports the junta.
“We asked the Russian government because of the bilateral collaboration between Burkina and Russia, that they send us people to train our men,” he said, adding that the instructors will teach soldiers about weapons, military techniques as well as culture.
The sale of arms and bilateral military cooperation agreements between Russia and some African countries have in some instances been a precursor to the deployment of Wagner’s mercenary troops, said a report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
Observers say countries using Wagner Group fighters often refer to them as Russian instructors. Wagner, founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian millionaire businessman with ties to President Vladimir Putin, has had about 1,000 forces in Mali for more than a year.
In January, Burkina Faso ordered the departure of some 400 French special forces based in the country, cutting military relations with France amid soaring jihadi violence that´s killed thousands and plunged the once peaceful nation into crisis.
