ABIDJAN: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday arrived in Chad, the last leg of a tour of African nations marked by strong anti-Western sentiment and the promise of greater military backing against extremists.
The veteran diplomat has offered to strengthen economic, trade and above all military cooperation with Guinea, Congo and Burkina Faso, his first stops.
The Kremlin has seen relations with the West plummet since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has doubled down on efforts to boost its influence in Africa, replacing western powers, above all France.
“It’s not peace that the Westerners want to preserve,” in Ukraine, Lavrov told journalists, but “the following principles: you have to choose between supporting Russia or supporting” Ukraine.
“And if you support Russia, you will be punished,” he said.
Chad is one of the last pieces Moscow is trying to put together in the Sahel region, which not long ago was France’s sphere of influence.
France has seen its troops dismissed from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso by their military regimes since 2022.
Mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner group have arrived, all presented as military instructors.
Paris still deploys about 1,000 soldiers in Chad, and says it intends to stay there, if in reduced numbers.
Rumours of armed Russians working alongside Chadian soldiers, notably in the south, are rife on social media.
But officially for now, N’Djamena is the last hold-out against the Russian influx.
Lavrov held talks with Chad’s General Mahamat Idriss Deby who has just been elected president after three years at the head of a military junta.
Deby paid a visit to Moscow in January, raising questions about his plans to broaden his international allies.
“For six months we’ve seen a veritable warming of relations between Russian and Chad,” African studies expert Vsevolod Sviridov told AFP in Moscow.
Paris has remained solidly behind Deby even though other western capitals have voiced concern at the contested election and the violent crackdown on all opposition.
“Our friendship with Chad will not influence its relations with France,” Lavrov said in N’Djamena.
“France has a different approach: either you are with us or you are against us,” he added.
In Burkina Faso on Wednesday, Lavrov said the number of Russian military instructors there “will increase.”
“At the same time, we are training in Russia representatives of the armed forces and security forces of Burkina Faso,” he said in the capital Ouagadougou.
Extremists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group have waged a grinding insurgency since 2015 in Burkina Faso that has killed thousands of people and displaced two million.
“I have no doubt that thanks to this cooperation, the pockets of terrorists which remain in Burkina Faso will be destroyed,” the Russian minister said.
In Guinea on Monday, Lavrov congratulated the country for being “in the avant-guard of the decolonization process.”
On Tuesday, in Congo, Lavrov took aim at the West’s support of Ukraine and its supposed “objectives” elsewhere, such as Libya.
Last July, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited African leaders to a summit in Saint Petersburg where he said they agreed to promote a multipolar world order and to fight neo-colonialism.
Putin hailed the “commitment of all our states to the formation of a just and democratic multipolar world order.”
Russia’s Lavrov takes anti-western tour to Chad
Russia’s Lavrov takes anti-western tour to Chad
- Chad is one of the last pieces Moscow is trying to put together in the Sahel region, which not long ago was France’s sphere of influence
- Russia FM Sergei Lavrov: ‘France has a different approach: either you are with us or you are against us’
World welcomes 2026 with fireworks after year of turmoil
- Australia holds defiant celebrations after its worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years
- Hong Kong holds a subdued event after a deadly fire in tower blocks
PARIS, France: People around the globe toasted the end of 2025 on Wednesday, bidding farewell to one of the hottest years on record, packed with Trump tariffs, a Gaza truce and vain hopes for peace in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used his traditional New Year address to tell his compatriots their military “heroes” would deliver victory in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, while his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was “10 percent” away from a deal to end the fighting.
Earlier, New Year celebrations took on a somber tone in Sydney as revellers held a minute of silence for victims of the Bondi Beach shooting before nine tons of fireworks lit up the harbor city at the stroke of midnight.
Seeing in the New Year in Moscow, Natalia Spirina, a pensioner from the central city of Ulyanovsk, said that in 2026 she hoped for “our military operation to end as soon as possible, for the guys to come home and for peace and stability to finally be established in Russia.”
Over the border in Vyshgorod, Ukrainian beauty salon manager Daria Lushchyk said the war had made her work “hell” — but that her clients were still coming regardless.
“Nothing can stop our Ukrainian girls from coming in and getting themselves glam,” Lushchyk said.
Back in Sydney, heavily armed police patrolled among hundreds of thousands of people lining the shore barely two weeks after a father and son allegedly opened fire on a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in Australia’s deadliest mass shooting for almost 30 years.
Parties paused for a minute of silence an hour before midnight, with the famed Sydney Harbor Bridge bathed in white light to symbolize peace.
Pacific nations including Kiribati and New Zealand were the first to see in 2026, with Seoul and Tokyo following Sydney in celebrations that will stretch to glitzy New York via Scotland’s Hogmanay festival.
More than two million people are expected to pack Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach for what authorities have called the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve party.
In Hong Kong, a major New Year fireworks display planned for Victoria Harbor was canceled in homage to 161 people killed in a fire in November that engulfed several apartment blocks.
Truce and tariffs
This year has brought a mix of stress and excitement for many, war for others still — and offbeat trends, with Labubu dolls becoming a worldwide craze.
Thieves plundered the Louvre in a daring heist, and K-pop heartthrobs BTS made their long-awaited return.
The world lost pioneering zoologist Jane Goodall, the Vatican chose a new, American, pope and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk laid bare America’s deep political divisions.
Donald Trump returned as US president in January, launching a tariff blitz that sent global markets into meltdown.
Trump used his Truth Social platform to lash out at his sliding approval ratings ahead of midterm elections to be held in November.
“Isn’t it nice to have a STRONG BORDER, No Inflation, a powerful Military, and great Economy??? Happy New Year!” he wrote.
After two years of war that left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, US pressure helped land a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October — though both sides have accused each other of flagrant violations.
“We bid farewell to 2025 with deep sorrow and grief,” said Gaza City resident Shireen Al-Kayali. “We lost a lot of people and our possessions. We lived a difficult and harsh life, displaced from one city to another, under bombardment and in terror.”
In contrast, there was optimism despite abiding internal challenges in Syria, where residents of the capital Damascus celebrated a full year since the fall of Bashar Assad.
“There is no fear, the people are happy, all of Syria is one and united, and God willing ... it will be a good year for the people and the wise leadership,” marketing manager Sahar Al-Said, 33, told AFP against a backdrop of ringing bells near Damascus’s Bab Touma neighborhood.
“I hope, God willing, that we will love each other. Loving each other is enough,” said Bashar Al-Qaderi, 28.
Sports, space and AI
In Dubai, thousands of revellers queued for up to nine hours for a spectacular fireworks and laser display at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
After a build-up featuring jet skis and floating pianos on an adjacent lake, a 10-minute burst of pyrotechnics and LED effects lit up the needle-shaped, 828-meter tall (2,717-feet) tower.
The coming 12 months promise to be full of sports, space and questions over artificial intelligence.
NASA’s Artemis II mission, backed by tech titan Elon Musk, will launch a crewed spacecraft to circle the moon during a 10-day flight, more than 50 years since the last Apollo lunar mission.
After years of unbridled enthusiasm, AI is facing scrutiny and nervous investors are questioning whether the boom might now resemble a market bubble.
Athletes will gather in Italy in February for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
And for a few weeks in June and July, 48 nations will compete in the biggest football World Cup in history in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
