Russia’s Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and Prime Minister of Burkina Faso, Apollinaire J. Kyelem de Tambela, have discussed expanding military ties, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday.
Moscow has been pursuing a combination of military, diplomatic, and economic interests in Africa, vying with the West for influence after Russia’s war in Ukraine triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and Washington in decades.
After Putin’s landslide win in Russia’s presidential election in March, some newspapers in Africa saw Putin’s re-election as reinforcing the stance of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
Burkina Faso, under military leadership since a 2022 coup, has played host to contingents of the Wagner mercenary force, whose founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in August last year (2023).
In June, Russia said it was sending additional military supplies and instructors to Burkina Faso to help the west African country boost its defence capabilities and fight terrorism.
Moscow has so far invested very little in Africa, according to United Nations data, even as its arms exports to sub-Saharan Africa have fallen in recent years, according to 2023 data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
But Russia is still the second-largest supplier of weapons to the region.
At the 2023 Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Putin said Moscow signed military-technical agreements with 40 African countries, which potentially opened the door for more Russian arms sales to the region.
Russia-Burkina relations are based on the principles of mutual respect, consideration of each other’s interests, and have acquired positive dynamics in recent years,” the Russian defence ministry cited Belousov as saying in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Wagner recovers bodies of its mercenaries killed in Mali
Meanwhile, Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said that its fighters have recovered the bodies of its mercenaries killed in a July battle with Tuareg rebels and Islamists during a desert sandstorm in Mali, Reuters has also reported.
Mali, where military authorities seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, is battling a years-long Islamist insurgency.
Wagner said in July that it took heavy losses in the battle but has given few details.
“An operation was successfully completed to return the bodies of our brothers, who in July 2024 heroically took up the fight with Islamists many times outnumbered,” Wagner said in a rare statement on Telegram late on Tuesday.
The loss of the battle in July illustrated the dangers faced by Russian mercenary forces working for military juntas, which are struggling to contain separatists and powerful offshoots of Islamic State and Al Qaeda across the arid Sahel region in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
Wagner said its fighters had passed through a desert area near Tinzaouaten in northern Mali that was “teeming with Azawad militants”.
“The bodies of our fallen brothers will return to the homeland,” Wagner said.
“We do not leave our own, and all of them – dead or alive – will be returned home,” it added.
