MOSCOW: The Russian army is operating in six African countries, state TV reported in a rare high-profile acknowledgement of the extent of Moscow\u2019s official military presence on the continent.<\/p>\n
Facing isolation in the West following its full-scale offensive in Ukraine, Moscow has tried to build new partnerships in Africa, where it has been growing its political, economic and military footprint in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers and soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces unit are already operating in six African countries,\u201d a state TV correspondent said in a report broadcast Sunday.<\/p>\n
Except from Mali, the report did not specify which countries.<\/p>\n
Russian troops or military instructors have been reported to be additionally deployed in Burkina Faso, Niger, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic and Libya.<\/p>\n
The African Corps unit of the Russian defense ministry took over from the Wagner paramilitary group across the continent, diplomatic sources in the Sahel region told AFP in June.<\/p>\n
The Wagner group was disbanded and restructured after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a mysterious plane crash in August 2023 following a short-lived mutiny against Moscow.<\/p>\n
Its troops had been fighting in Ukraine and had been deployed across Africa.<\/p>\n
The state TV report identified Africa Corps as part of the Russian defense ministry.<\/p>\n
It said most of the soldiers deployed were \u201cveterans of the Special Military Operation,\u201d Russia\u2019s term for the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
In one shot, a flag with insignia resembling the Wagner group\u2019s trademark skull logo could be seen at what the reporter said was a Russian base in Mali.<\/p>\n
The video also showed two Russian bombers launching an attack and displayed heavy Russian equipment including helicopters and armored personnel carriers.<\/p>\n
Moscow says its forces are helping several African governments repel jihadist insurgencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW: The Russian army is operating in six African countries, state TV reported in a rare high-profile acknowledgement of the extent of Moscow\u2019s official military presence on the continent. Facing isolation in the West following its full-scale offensive in Ukraine, Moscow has tried to build new partnerships in Africa, where it has been growing its …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":89773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89774,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89750\/revisions\/89774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}