in Africa.
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Over the past 60 years, France has used every possible diplomatic device, overt and covert, fair and foul, to incorporate some 14 African nations into a neocolonial imperium called "Françafrique" — a vast region covering a quarter of Africa and stretching for nearly 3,000 miles from Senegal on the Atlantic coast to Chad in the continent's center.
Amid such geopolitical upheaval, a most unlikely man from Moscow appeared on the spot in 2017. His name — now all too well known — was Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder and commander of a notorious mercenary army, the Wagner Group. As the French retreated slowly and exceedingly reluctantly from their post-colonial imperium, Wagner began moving in, becoming Moscow's surrogate in an ongoing great-power contest for influence and control in Africa.
By the time in late 2022 that France's failing nine-year effort to secure the Sahel was drawing down, Wagner's forces were already operating secret gold mines in Sudan, running the largest gold mine in the Central African Republic with projected revenues of $100 USD million annually, and had earned $200 USD million since 2021 providing security for Mali, a land roiled by Islamist rebels. In March, Washington warned Chad's president that Wagner mercenaries were plotting to assassinate him and were also preparing Chadian rebels to attack from their bases in the Central African Republic. After the July coup in Niger, cheering crowds were seen waving (as well as wearing) Russian flags. And as 1,500 French troops and that country's ambassador were being withdrawn, Niger's new military leaders promptly contacted Wagner for support, expanding Russia's sphere of influence in the French imperium it was fast supplanting.
Niger has been the biggest supplier of cheap Uranium to France with nukes supplying about 50% of their total electricity supply.
Maybe it is time to paint up French Legionnaires, Marines, Russian mercenaries, local African military, militia and maybe some ChiComs too.
Now you can understand why Macron is suddenly calling on everyone to defeat Russia. France will also be filling the gap in international arms sales because Russia needs their equipment and based on their performance in Ukraine I doubt if they will have many new clients in the future.
Follow the money – banks, not tanks:
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Wolfhag
