The countries that have not joined the sanctions against Russia are India, China, Cuba, Nicaragua e Bolivia. But many others, from Mexico toArgentina, they have offered to support the peremptory American requests to take sides for Ukraine. In Africa openly in favor of Putin's Russia are registered, South Africa, Angola, Algeria, Congo, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Namibia, Uganda, Sudan, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
For South Africa, the ancient ties between the ANC leaders and the USSR at the time of the struggle against Apartheid work. Ethiopia, another giant on the continent, uses Moscow's support to crush the Tigray revolt. More surprising is the knot of a French-speaking annex such as Senegal: which also hosts the anti-terrorism maneuvers of American troops and to which Washington had just promised a billion dollars in aid. Many African countries have been asking for a seat on the Security Council for years in vain.
In Africa, together with China, Russia has filled the void left, indeed never filled with conviction, by the West. Over the years there has been a systematic partition of the Black Continent. From an economic point of view, pro-Russian Africa is still in a phase of growth and has twenty billion dollars against 200 for China. But the Russian mining giants are protagonists in some countries: Guinea for bauxite, Zimbabwe for platinum, for uranium in Namibia and for gold in Central Africa and in Sahel.
With the private company of mercenaries Wagner, controlled by the Kremlin, geologists also systematically arrive in Africa in search of concessions. The Russians are fighting the jihadists and are receiving consensus. Alexander Ivanov, Wagner man, after the anti-French coup in Burkina Faso he sang the praise of the third world hero Thomas Sankara calling him the Che Guevara African. Evgeni Prigoijne, Putinian businessman exported to Africa, spoke of a second decolonization against a West that tries to impose foreign values on Africans by making fun of them.
The mercenaries of Wagner
Russian mercenaries in Africa have been linked to massacres in which several hundred civilians died, sparking fears about the impact of Moscow's interventions on stability and security across the continent. Western officials have so far largely avoided naming the killers, but witnesses, local community leaders, diplomats and local analysts have accused the Wagner group of many civilian deaths.
The most notable incidents occurred in Mali, where Wagner arrived last year after making a deal with his new military rulers. Internal Malian army documents seen by the Guardian reveal that Wagner members were on "mixed missions" with soldiers and gendarmes in operations in which many civilians were killed. According to data compiled by the NGO Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled), 456 civilians died in nine incidents involving the Malian and Wagner forces between January and mid-April. By far the most serious incident occurred in March, when the Wagner group was reportedly involved in a massacre in Moura, a village controlled by Islamic extremists, where between 350 and 380 men were killed in four days.
Last week, there are reports of two shootings in villages around the town of Hombori in the central region of Mopti, after the deaths of one or perhaps two Wagner mercenaries who accompanied Malian troops in operations against Islamic militants.
Aid workers, experts and human rights activists said an attack occurred after a military patrol was ambushed around 9:30 am on April 19. According to an internal military memo from Mali, a "Russian instructor" was injured by an EOD and died after being flown to the city of Sevare.
After the ambush, Malian soldiers fired on a crowded market. Mali's rulers, who seized power in a coup last May, say the Russians only carry out training activities and are not used in combat roles.
The sickly army denied that a Russian paramilitary was killed on April 19, stating that the victim was one of its soldiers. He also denied the killing of civilians and claimed that 18 terrorists had been "neutralized" in "vigorous" security operations. Another internal note described a clash that took place on April 23 between militants and "a joint patrol of FAMA and Russian instructors" between Mondoro and Boni. The "provisional losses" are "two dead - one FAMA and one Russian - and 10 wounded - six FAMA and four Russians", reads the note. Details of "enemy losses" were "not available".
Twelve other people are also thought to have died, who could be extremists.
Tuesday a report of Human Rights Watch said Russian mercenaries in the Central African Republic have been killing and torturing civilians since 2019. British officials have expressed concern over "a significant deterioration in the human rights situation" in Mali, which they say coincided with the arrival of 600-1.000 fighters Wagner.
Wagner in Mali established a headquarters near the international airport of the capital Bamako in December, satellite images shared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and flight records reveal. In January and February they moved to advanced operational bases in central Mali. Western intelligence reports that Wagner paramilitaries were seen on joint patrols with Malian forces along the border with Burkina Faso and Niger, on the western border with Mauritania and also in cities in northern Mali, including Timbuktu.
Wagner pilots fly Malian army helicopters, and the group supplied fighters who led Malian forces in larger operations, particularly against Islamist insurgents starting in late February.
In early March, more than 30 burned bodies were found in Niono, central Mali, following operations by Malian forces supported by Wagner. Local witnesses accused Malian and Russian fighters of killing civilians. Many had been blindfolded and then shot, according to Human Rights Watch. Malian officials denied the claims. Moura, where the alleged massacre of hundreds of people took place in March, is located in a swampy area of the Niger River floodplain that has been controlled for years by the Islam and Muslim Support Group (GSIM) linked to al-Qaeda. . They have imposed their own intolerant version of Sharia law. Amadou Barry, who lives in a nearby village, said he was at the Moura market on March 27 when the helicopters appeared and unloaded the troops.
The Malian army then opened fire on people running, killing so many people, ”Barry said. The Malian soldiers then took hundreds of men from the village to a dry river bed for questioning, where they were held with little food or water for four days, while Barry and other witnesses said the soldiers periodically took the groups away for be killed.
The Malian military claimed it killed 203 militants during a military operation in Moura and denied reports of execution-style killings. Russia vetoed the UN bid for an independent investigation into the massacre, and Mali blocked UN efforts to send a team to Moura. Moscow's Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations said claims that Russian mercenaries were involved in the massacre were part of "a cunning geopolitical game."