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’
EU should consider forming combined military force: defense chief
- Kubilius floated creating a “powerful, standing ‘European military force’ of 100,000 troops” that could eventually replace US forces
- Trump has heightened fears among NATO allies over Washington’s reliability by insisting he wants to take over Greenland
BRUSSELS: EU countries should weigh whether to set up a combined military force that could eventually replace US troops in Europe, the bloc’s defense chief said Sunday.
EU defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius floated creating a “powerful, standing ‘European military force’ of 100,000 troops” as a possible option to better protect the continent.
“How will we replace the 100,000-strong American standing military force, which is the back-bone military force in Europe?” he asked in a speech in Sweden.
The suggestion comes as US President Donald Trump has heightened fears among NATO allies over Washington’s reliability by insisting he wants to take over Greenland.
Worries over Trump’s commitment to Europe have already spurred countries to step up efforts to bolster their militaries in the face of the threat posed by Russia.
Ideas about establishing a central European army have floated around for years but have largely failed to gain traction as nations are wary of relinquishing control over their militaries.
The US has pushed its European allies to increasingly take over responsibility for their own security, and raised the prospect it could shift forces from Europe to focus on China.
“In such times, we should not run away from the most pressing questions on our institutional defense readiness,” said Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister.
In his speech Kubilius also advocated for the creation of a “European Security Council” of key powers — including potentially Britain — that could help the continent take decisions over its own defense quicker.
“The European Security Council could be composed of key permanent members, along with several rotational members,” he said.
“In total around 10-12 members, with the task to discuss the most important issues in defense.”
He said the first focus of such a body should be trying to change the dynamics in the war in Ukraine to ensure that Kyiv does not end up losing.
“We need to have a clear answer — how is the EU going to change that scenario?,” he said.
“This is the reason why we need to have a European Security Council now!“
