Kremlin sends in troops to extend its reach in Africa
Moscow is trying to outflank Paris and extend its influence in Africa using fraught elections in a former French African colony.
Officials in the Central African Republic (CAR) confirmed that Russia had sent hundreds of military personnel to the country at the request of its leader, who is seeking re-election this weekend as fears grow of a coup.
Armed rebels have accused President Faustin-Archange Touadera, 63, who has relied increasingly on the Kremlin to shore up his shaky government, of plotting to fix the ballot to win a second term.
Touadera’s closeness to Russia is seen as a setback to French President Emmanuel Macron’s
ambitions to reassert influence in Francophone Africa.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aspiration to win influence among Africa’s leaders coincides with a downgrade by the United States of its links to the continent. US President Donald Trump recently ordered the withdrawal of US troops from Somalia.
Moscow’s military power helped troops sent from Rwanda to reclaim control of a strategic town in the CAR that had been overrun by rebels. Bambari, 390 kilometres northeast of the capital, Bangui, is now under the control of United Nations soldiers and national security forces.
Though rich in diamonds, timber and gold, the CAR remains one of the world’s most unstable countries, and its 5 million people live in grinding poverty. Since independence from France in 1960, it has suffered five coups and many rebellions.
The latest crisis flared up after the country’s top court rejected several candidates for the election, including former president Francois Bozize, who has been indicted for war crimes. The government has accused him of plotting a coup, which his party denies.
Facebook exposed the rivalry between Paris and Moscow for influence in Africa when a raft of fake accounts were linked to the French military and shady Russian figures, in breach of its rules on foreign or government interference.
One of the networks shut down by Facebook was directly connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman who has close ties to the Kremlin and has been indicted in the US for interference in the 2016 election using his troll factories. He has denied any wrongdoing.