Russia's influence in African countries is growing and the French military has formed a unit to counter Moscow in the information sphere in these states. This was reported on Thursday by the Axios Internet portal, citing French officials.
As noted in the publication, "France has remained a dominant force in West Africa for a long time after decolonization," but "there seems to be a growing Russian influence." The material says that protests against France, in particular, took place in Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad. According to the portal, officials in Paris "are trying to assess how widespread the pro-Russian and anti-French sentiments are in the troubled Sahel region."
French officials claim that what is happening is allegedly related to the activities of the Wagner private military company in African countries, as well as "networking campaigns" allegedly carried out by the Russian side.
"The French armed forces have set up an information warfare unit focused on identifying such 'information attacks' by Russia and countering them," the portal reported.
"We are not competing with Wagner, we are competing with Russia's attempts to push France and the West out of Africa," added the official, whose position was not specified.
According to Axios, in light of the protests against France in African countries, Paris expects to "keep [its] military operations in the shadows and draw more attention to the aid and development-oriented projects worth hundreds of millions of euros" in Africa.
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Based on materials from TASS