Russians visit Niger to train air defenses

Russian military trainers arrived this week in Niger to reinforce the country’s air defenses as the west African nation pulls away from cooperation with the United States in counterterrorism efforts, turning instead to Russia for security.

State television in Niger on Thursday broadcast footage of Russian military trainers arriving in the country aboard a plane equipped with military supplies. Two Russian trainers were filmed in front of the plane at night.

“We are here to train the Nigerien army to use the military equipment that is here,” one of the Russian trainers said in the broadcast, speaking in French. “We are here to develop military cooperation between Russia and Niger.”

Niger’s ruling military council, known as the CNSP, has yet to order American troops out, U.S. officials have said. But the arrival of Russian forces makes it complicated for the U.S. forces, with diplomatic and civilian personnel, to remain in the country.

Until recently, Washington considered Niger a partner and ally in a region swept by coups in recent years, investing millions of dollars in an airbase in a desert area that served as the heart of American counterinsurgency operations in Africa’s sub-saharan region known as the Sahel.

The U.S. also invested in training Niger’s forces to beat back insurgencies by militants linked to al-qaida and the Islamic State group, which ravaged the country and its neighbors. But last summer, some of those elite U.s.-trained forces took part in a coup that ousted the elected president. Since then, relations between Niger’s new leaders and Washington have deteriorated.

After the visit last month of a U.S. delegation led by the top U.S. envoy to Africa, Molly Phee, the junta announced on state television that flights from the U.s.-built airbase were illegal and that it no longer recognized the American military presence in the country.