Last May, in the center of the Malian capital, Bamako, everyone's attention was drawn to a crowd of Malian protesters who wanted to show support for the junta's leader, Colonel Asmi Guetta.
What raised the odds was the Russian flags raised by the demonstrators in conjunction with the launch of slogans denouncing the French presence in the country.
The crowd was an expression of voices in Mali calling for the country to push for greater cooperation with the Russians in exchange for disengaging from Paris, in a clear expression of the increasing negative feelings toward the French, who have deployed thousands of troops to fight armed groups since 2013 without being able to defeat them.
The Russians did not stop at posing in support of them.
While the world was denouncing a planned agreement between Mali and the Russian mercenary group "Wagner" to train the Malian army, the "Yerewulu" group, one of the political groups in Mali, was quick to praise the agreement, as its spokesperson said: "If Wagner goes to liberate Syria, and if Wagner goes to liberate the republic Central Africa, we welcome Wagner to Bamako to liberate Mali... It's the end of French Africa."
In fact, Russia is looking to expand its influence in Mali, as it is increasingly seen as a potential security partner to fill the void after the gradual French withdrawal from northern Mali, but Paris, which intends to withdraw its forces from the north of the country in early 2022, and end the military "Barkhane" operation. On the coast, it still possesses its influence cards, and it certainly does not wish to leave a vacuum to be filled in Moscow in a country that has long been considered an arena of exclusive French influence.
France in Mali..a decade of failure
In a butterfly-shaped country along the Niger River, the colonial armies of France entered Mali in 1904, and remained in that state until 1960, when most of the countries of the continent got rid of European colonialism. However, about a decade ago, Mali appealed to its old colonizer in order to rid it of a fierce enemy, the Tuareg separatists, who came to the point of threatening the capital, Bamako, after they took control of several areas. Indeed, the French responded to the call and sent their forces into northern Mali in 2013.
However, Paris, which came with its armies for a mission that was expected not to exceed a few weeks, found itself stuck in the country under the pretext of containing future attacks and preventing Mali’s transformation into an alleged hotbed of terrorism on the one hand, and to support and train the region’s armies on the other, and then deployed 5,100 French soldiers with Aircraft and vehicles in an area stretching across Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, and launched "Operation Barkhane" in 2014 to achieve these goals. Although the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda, which were targeted by the French "Operation Barkhane", have incurred heavy losses over the past years, the small size of the French force in comparison to the vast area of operations made it impossible for the French to strike every spot of the militants or to destroy them completely.
It was not, then, more than limited victories in which the movements of these groups were restricted, and in which many of their senior leaders were killed.
As for the French, they committed grave crimes that included the killing of hundreds of innocent people, as happened with 22 civilians who were killed in an air raid targeting a wedding party in central Mali last January.
The losses of the French forces did not stop at the killing of 56 Frenchmen since 2013 or at the billion dollars it spent annually in combating terrorism in the region. Rather, the French intervention exacerbated the pace of violent operations, and ultimately failed to prevent the country from becoming a hotbed of cross-border crime, including: This is the smuggling of drugs and migrants, from which armed groups have taken their source of income.
French President Emmanuel Macron walks past coffins covered with the flags of the thirteen French soldiers who were killed in Mali
Moreover, the militants (mostly from the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM)) have taken control of large swathes of central Mali and along the borders with Niger and Burkina Faso, and their attacks have now spread south. Extending to Côte d'Ivoire and Benin, and having been stationed 600 km from the Malian capital Bamako six years ago, they are now attacking the capital from a distance of less than 100 km.
These conditions have prompted millions to declare their dissatisfaction with the French military intervention. The number of victims of armed violence in neighboring Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger has increased fivefold since 2016, even in 2019, four thousand people were killed.
In the highest annual toll so far, nearly 7,000 people were killed in 2020, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
The lack of international support threatens the Paris strategy
Last June, three weeks after the latest coup in Mali, French President Macron came out in a press conference, saying that he had had enough of his country's forces in the African Sahel region, stressing that "France should not replace a sovereign country and build its future in its place." . The plan, which the French president talked about, is to reduce his country's forces in half in the Sahel, to be done over two years, and to fill the void with special forces while continuing efforts to enhance the readiness of local armies to perform tasks in the future.
With regard to Mali, which is covered by the aforementioned French position, Paris’s frustration with the situation there dates back to before the military coup that took place last May. France was tired of the lack of political progress after years of efforts to get rid of armed groups, especially as it intensified Jihadist groups launched their attacks recently in the Sahel, and they are continuing to expand their attacks without being much affected by the killing of several of their prominent leaders at the hands of the French army.
Then came the coup, which Paris strongly criticized its leaders, and as a result of which it halted its military cooperation with Mali for a short period. The unstable situation in the country has led to a French conviction that the international presence gives little incentive to Bamako to carry out political reforms, especially since the military strategy adopted by France and other Western countries to combat terrorism in Africa did not achieve the desired stability because it lacked a parallel strategy to impose the rule of law. Promote public services and economic opportunities, and ensure security forces are held accountable for human rights abuses.
But Macron's desire to disengage and reduce the military presence does not mean that he will permanently abandon the coast, he only wants to maintain his influence in a way that he cannot bear all this trouble, and as writer "Colum Lynch" says in his article published in the magazine "Foreign Policy": This is just a new step in Paris' long-standing policy on its role in Africa. Since the 1990s, Paris has been oscillating between the temptation to retreat and the need to restore its policing role on the continent. It is worth noting here the policy of Paris towards the urgent coast when it refused military intervention in the country and then returned in the early twenty-first century to engage in its conflicts, then decided to reduce its military activity to a minimum, before returning, starting in 2011, to intervening again.
So, as Macron announced at the aforementioned conference, Paris wants a joint effort by Washington and other Western allies to replace Operation Barkhane by providing international special forces to combat terrorism in the region, in other words, Macron wants to move from a traditional French security operation to a broader multilateral effort to address the challenges The security, political and developmental aspects of the Sahel region.
In this context, France's initiative comes to organize a European working group called "Takuba". The team, which was established last year, trains and advises African anti-terrorist forces. It is expected that "Takuba" will play an important role in the fight against terrorism after the French withdrawal.
France and several of its European allies have set up a new task force, Takuba in the Sahel.
The new task force will fight armed groups in the West African region of the Sahel alongside the armies of Mali and Niger https://t.co/apIn1btHvn pic.twitter.com/521ok7XSxT
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 28, 2020
However, Paris is facing an American Western coldness towards its future plans in the Sahel. The American administration seems to want to limit its efforts in combating terrorism in the region to intelligence and logistical support, and does not want to get involved by deploying its soldiers on the ground.
Accordingly, France is facing resistance in the United Nations and among its Western allies against the backdrop of its strategy in the Sahel, especially with regard to expanding the role of the United Nations, as the United States raised concerns about the cost of the French proposal to expand the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, and did not hesitate Washington also expressed its concern over the involvement of the United Nations in a new regional fight against terrorism at a time when the system of the war on terrorism is retreating and being replaced by alliances to contain China.
Russian bear in the backyard of France
On October 23, 2019, the city of Sochi on the shores of the Black Sea in Russia witnessed a historic meeting, which brought together Russian President Vladimir Putin with dozens of African heads of state in the framework of the Russia-Africa summit that was held for the first time. From this summit, Moscow aimed to formalize its presence on the continent, exploiting diplomatic disputes with Western powers as a starting point for expanding its presence in Africa and penetrating the military and political structures in it. Continent, but it competes for cooperation with Africa.
In recent years, the Kremlin has deepened its economic and military relations with the countries of the continent, especially since Western sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which conducted research on the growing Russian influence, Russia has rushed towards African markets and partners, and it has taken the throne Arms exporters to the continent supplied it with 39% of arms deals between 2013-2017.
In West Africa where the French lie, Russia is looking to fill the void in Mali and restore its relations with Bamako that date back to 1961. With the end of the colonial era, Mali turned to the former Soviet Union, wishing to achieve independence from its former colonizers, like many African countries that It headed towards the Soviets, while the Russians at the time wanted to take advantage of the country's rich natural resources, the most important of which were minerals, in addition to using the continent as a theater for influence in its cold war with the West. The Malian president at the time asked the Russians to train and equip his country's army, and military cooperation continued until the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell, and the Russians were busy building their influence in the former Soviet bloc countries only.
But since 2012, in conjunction with the help of the French, Bamako has made an effort to renew its old military cooperation with Moscow, and the two sides signed several military agreements, including an agreement with the Russian arms export company (Rosoboronexport) to purchase 3,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles for nearly one million euros in 2012, In 2016, Moscow also donated two helicopters to the Malian army. Finally, former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita concluded a military defense agreement with Russia two years ago. It was not strange, then, that Boubacar Keita came out at the Russian-African summit in Sochi, addressing Putin in his own home by saying: "We need to show your friendship in the region so that everyone knows that you are a hero, you are qualified in this field, Mr. President Putin. We need to that day".
Since the (previous) coup in Mali in August 2020, while France has begun its real steps to leave the theater of the fighting in the Sahel, Russia has intensified its diplomatic efforts and deepened its commercial cooperation in Mali's energy and mining sector.
After the last coup in May 2021, several sources spoke of the Malian military government strengthening its contacts with Moscow, including the visit of the Minister of Defense and coup leader “Sadio Camara” to the Russian capital this September to meet with Russian military officials, and discuss a number of agreements security and military.
Mali: The Minister of Defense meets with the Russian Ambassador
, the Minister of Defense and Veterans Affairs Colonel Sadio Camara received the Ambassador of Russia in Mali, Mr. Igor Anatolyevich Gromero, on Tuesday, June 15, 2021, in the meeting room of his administration. The two persons were in the presence of a number of officers.
Follows pic.twitter.com/uUWzPQ2h32
— 🇧🇫 Muhammad Al-Amin Sawadgo (@Mouhamed_sawa) June 15, 2021
The most prominent thing that was revealed in the context of the relationship between Bamako and Moscow is the signing of an agreement between the country’s military council and the Russian paramilitary group “Wagner” stipulating the deployment of 1,000 Russian mercenaries in the country in coordination with the army in order to protect high-ranking figures. The contract also allowed the Russian company access to three mining sites, for which 6 billion CFA francs (about 10 million dollars) will be paid to the company associated with the group.
Although Wagner's forces will not participate directly in military operations, the agreement with them angered Paris, and while France says Wagner's arrival undermines the decade-long counter-terrorism efforts against al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked rebels in the Sahel region of West Africa, observers believe that the presence of the group's elements In Mali, it would greatly weaken French influence in the region, and then the Russian move here would essentially undermine Russia's rival, not necessarily to establish security and stability that African countries aspire to and which the former Western alliance was unable to achieve.
Ultimately, as France prepares to gradually reduce its military personnel, the Malians are playing the French-Russian rivalry to achieve their interests, but this strategy has its limits for the Russians, who see the Malian junta as an alternative to Paris, as Moscow is not necessarily keen on combating terrorism. In the Sahel region, especially that the brown continent is a marginal partner for it, unlike Syria and Ukraine.
All there is, then, is that Moscow is looking for a new foothold instead of a fading Western power, and wants to consolidate the network of solid Russian alliances with dictatorial and military regimes, a strategy that may bring mutual military and political benefits in the short term, but with time it may make Moscow A popular enemy is being chanted against in the squares, like France.