helicopter flies by soldiers and military vehicles during a joint
Russian-Turkish patrol in the eastern countryside of the town of
Darbasiyah near the border with Turkey in Syria’s northeastern
Hasakah province on December 7, 2020. Delil SOULEIMAN /
AFP
Moscow said Tuesday it had dispatched 300 Russian
military instructors to the Central African Republic at the CAR’s
request after an alleged attempted coup ahead of upcoming
elections.
In a statement, the foreign ministry said Russia had
“promptly responded” to a request and sent “an additional 300
instructors to train the military personnel of the national army”
under the terms of an existing cooperation agreement.
On Monday the CAR government said that Russia, along with
Rwanda, had sent in hundreds of troops after three powerful rebel
groups merged and started to advance on the capital Bangui at the
weekend.
The advance was halted and in some places pushed back and the
situation was “under control,” the UN peacekeeping force in the
CAR, known as MINUSCA, said late Sunday.
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The Russian foreign ministry said it was “seriously concerned
that the events of recent days have led to a sharp degradation of
the security situation” in the CAR.
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The actions of the three rebel groups had been “well coordinated
and fed from the outside” and aimed at “disrupting the electoral
process,” it said.
On Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov denied that
Moscow had sent troops to CAR, although he noted that Russian
military instructors were already there under the existing
bilateral deal.
He insisted the CAR’s presidential elections would take place as
planned on December 27, despite “destructive forces” trying to
“disrupt” them.
The Kremlin has led a diplomatic and financial offensive in the
deeply troubled CAR since 2018 in return for concessions to Russian
companies to exploit the country’s mineral wealth, especially gold
and diamonds.
The strategy has been seen in the context of a Russian bid to
expand its influence in Africa, where the former Soviet Union used
arms sales and military training to wield clout in the Cold
War.
AFP