Niger: Russian military instructors arrive, Americans leave
Military instructors and Russian Defense Ministry personnel arrived in Niger on Wednesday, Niger state television RTN said, in a further sign that the West African country is building closer relations with Moscow, like its neighbors led by arrived. The news is reported by Reuters.
In a broadcast on Thursday, RTN showed footage of a military cargo plane unloading equipment, while people in uniform stood by. He said the deployment followed a recent agreement between Niger's junta and Russian President Vladimir Putin to increase cooperation.
“We are here to train the Nigerian army… (and) to develop military cooperation between Russia and Niger,” said a man in a camouflage uniform, who according to RTN was one of the instructors, with his face half covered.
RTN also said that Russia has agreed to install an anti-aircraft system in Niger . “Our airspace will now be more protected,” the broadcaster said. Obviously the anti-aircraft defense is not aimed against the jihadist rebels,
There was no immediate comment from Russia, which has sought to increase its influence in Africa by promoting itself as a friendly country without a colonial past on the continent.
The USA leaves, the Russians arrive
The arrival of the Russian instructors follows Niger's decision in mid-March to revoke the military agreement with the United States that had allowed Pentagon personnel to operate on its territory from two bases, including a drone base built on the cost over 100 million dollars.
The Pentagon later said that US officials had expressed concerns to Niger about the potential development of ties with Russia, before the junta severed the agreement governing the presence of about 1,000 US troops.
The USA has received a real eviction notice and is now trying, in any way, to maintain at least partial control over the military base, but for now there are no agreements in sight.
Since 2020, a series of military coups in Niger and neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso have followed a similar playbook and reshaped international efforts to contain a decades-long struggle with Islamist insurgents linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
The three juntas ended military agreements with longtime allies including France, fostered closer ties with Russia and formed their own cooperation pact known as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).
Violence in the region has worsened since the coups. It peaked in 2023, with a 38% increase in conflict casualties in the central Sahel compared to the previous year, according to the US-based crisis monitoring group ACLED, which cited reports of more than 8,000 people killed only in Burkina Faso last year.
The instability has fueled a long-running humanitarian crisis in the region bordering the Sahara desert, already one of the poorest in the world. As of March, more than 3 million people were displaced, the International Organization for Migration said Monday.
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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/niger-arrivano-gli-istruttori-militari-russi-se-ne-vanno-gli-americani/ on Fri, 12 Apr 2024 11:56:40 +0000.