Moscow is a significant provider of military hardware, according to Ibrahim Traore, but he denied any involvement from Wagner in the city.
Speaking on Thursday on the nation’s “new forms of cooperation” in the wake of the removal of French troops, the head of the junta, Ibrahim Traore, claimed that Burkina Faso had turned to Russia as a strategic friend.
In a television interview, Traore remarked that “we have strategic allies too… Russia, for example, is a strategic ally,” adding that “the departure of the French army” in February “does not mean that France is not an ally.”
According to the UN, the security threat has caused 2.5 million people to flee their homes, and the West African nation cancelled a 2018 military accord that permitted French and Burkinabe troops to battle terrorists together due to military shortcomings.
With Paris blaming Moscow for anti-French sentiment in Burkina Faso and Mali, Western governments have regularly expressed worry about Russia’s expanding influence in Africa’s Sahel and border regions.
According to rumors, the private Russian military organization Wagner has been engaged in educating the Burkinabe Army, offering assistance with intelligence gathering, and conducting combat operations against insurgents in the nation’s north.
The head of the military administration, on the other hand, refuted rumors that Wagner soldiers were present in Ouagadougou, claiming that “our army fights alone.”
He claimed Moscow is a significant provider of military hardware to the nation, which has been dealing with ongoing Islamist insurgencies since 2013, and that he is “satisfied with the cooperation,” which he described as “frank.”
Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, referred to the claims that Wagner was present in Burkina Faso as unfounded. Aleksey Saltykov, Russia’s envoy to the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, confirmed the Kremlin’s dedication to fostering closer ties with Ouagadougou, where Moscow intends to reestablish its consulate after it was shut down in 1992, in a statement.
