The “coup belt” – in the terminology used by the newspaper The Times– widens into the Sahel. To the military regimes that came to power in Burkina Faso and in mali by means of a coup is now added Niger.
All of them have one element in common: the black hand of Russia and its executing arm, the wagner groupwhich stirs the hornet’s nest.
In the case of Niger, many supporters of the coup who demonstrated in favor of the military leader General Abdourahmane Tchiani they displayed Russian flags and messages in support of Putin.
The fact is that the context could not be more suitable for Putin’s interests in the region. These are extremely poor countries, tremendously unstable, rich in rare minerals and where jihadist groups linked to Islamic State and Al Qaeda They are on the offensive.
They are not the only African countries with a presence of the mercenaries of the wagner groupalso present in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the Central African Republic, in Libya or in Sudan, but the Sahel have become Russia’s spearhead to destabilize Europe.
The latest statements by the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhinousted in Belarus after his attempt to advance with his mercenaries on Moscow and partially pardoned by the Russian president, seem to confirm that Moscow’s interests are behind the coup in Mali this week.
Prigozhin praised, in an audio broadcast on the Telegram channels related to the wagner groupthe military coup in Niger, and justified it in the fight of the African country against what he called “Western colonizers”.
According to Prigozhinthe coup is part of a liberation process and he offered his mercenaries Wagner to help maintain order and stability in the new military regime.
“What happened in Niger is nothing more than the struggle of its people against the colonizers. colonizers who tried to impose their rules of life, their conditions, and keep them in the conditions in which Africa was hundreds of years ago,” Prigozhin said.
“Today, Niger You are effectively achieving your independence. Everything that comes now, the efficiency of its governance, will depend only on the citizens of Niger. That is the main thing, they have shaken off the colonizers », he concluded.
