France announced the withdrawal of troops from Mali and admitted that Russia has nothing to do with PMCs
Photo: Paul Lorgerie / Reuters
France, together with its allies in Operation Takuba in the African Sahel region, decided to withdraw its troops from Mali and redeploy them to the territory of neighboring Niger. This was announced by French President Emmanuel Macron, quoted by Reuters.
As noted in a joint statement by France and its partners in the operation, which the agency also refers to, the troops are withdrawing “due to numerous obstacles from the Malian transitional authorities.” The International Coalition considers that the political, operational and legal conditions are not suitable for the effective continuation of the current military involvement in the fight against terrorism in Mali.
In addition, Macron himself admitted in his statement that Paris believed in the absence of ties between the official Russian authorities and Wagner PMC fighters operating in Africa. “Mali is free to choose regarding structural military cooperation. But when I met with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin last week, he personally officially assured me that in this case we are not talking about relations between one sovereign state and another,” the politician said.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also stressed that the Mali authorities turned to PMCs for help. According to him, the French military in the African country “did not succeed, and the terrorists still rule the show there.” Lavrov also clarified that the Malian authorities assessed their own abilities in the fight against terrorism as insufficient and independently decided to turn to the Russian PMC.
