Mali: French army accuses Russian mercenaries of manipulation

Barkhane soldiers on their departure from Gossi, Mali.

© General Staff of the Armed Forces/ France

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

The French army announces that it has filmed images which, according to it, show behind the scenes of the fabrication of an infox by the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner company.

We see men burying bodies near the Gossi base.

A base that the French returned to the Malian military a few days ago.

For the French soldiers, this maneuver aims to accuse them of having left a mass grave behind them.

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This maneuver of discrediting, coordinated, started from a

published this Thursday at midday on the account of a certain Dia Diarra.

Surely a fake account created by Wagner, says the French army, since we also find his trace on a Russian platform.

This

is accompanied by a photo of corpses buried in the sand with the mention: " 

 ".

Video from a drone

Only the French army had positioned, in the last 24 hours, a drone directly above

.

And in this video taken from the air and which we were able to watch, we observe a dozen Caucasian soldiers, shovels in hand, covering corpses with sand which are in the same position as those in the photo of the

.

We also see two men filming the mass grave.

The scene takes place four kilometers from the Gossi camp and drone footage shows Dongfeng vehicles used

moving over this area.

Infox filmed almost end to end 

The French army believes that the comparison of the photos published on twitter and the images of the drone makes it possible to make a direct link between what the mercenaries are doing and what is falsely attributed to the French soldiers.

The production of a fake news could be filmed almost from start to finish and this is a first.

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