The United States has cautioned the military authorities in Ouagadougou of the dangers of a relationship with Russia, whose paramilitary group Wagner has publicly shown support for the perpetrators of the most recent coup in Burkina Faso.
The spokesperson for the US State Department, Vidant Patel, stated that “we have seen this in numerous instances in Africa alone. The (Wagner) group’s colonising nations have weakened and lost their sense of security.
He continued, “We strongly urge the new transitional government to adhere to the timetable for the restoration of a democratically elected civilian government, and we strongly condemn any attempt to exacerbate the current situation in Burkina Faso.
Since Captain Ibrahim Traore, 34, overthrew Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the leader of the reigning military group, on Friday night, Burkina Faso, a poor country in the Sahel, has been in upheaval. In January, Damiba had staged a coup to seize power.
In the nation’s capital, Ouagadougou, dozens of protesters sang pro-Russian chants on Tuesday while denouncing France for failing to make progress in West Africa.
Yevgeny Prigogine, the founder of the Wagner Group and a conservative millionaire, also expressed his support for Ibrahim Traore and his men on social media, stating they “did what was necessary (..) for the good of their people.”
Connections were made between Wagner’s paramilitary organisations and the dictatorship in neighbouring Mali.
This organisation has been spotted in the Central African Republic for eight years, as well as in the Ukraine, Syria, and Libya. The UN, Western countries, and NGOs accuse it of numerous crimes, and its critics regard to it as an army commanded by Vladimir Putin.
The Russian Wagner Group is mentioned in a warning from Washington to anyone planning a coup in Burkina Faso.
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