The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Serguei Lavrov, ended today in Sudan a visit to several African countries, including Angola, having defended on this last stop the performance of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner in Africa.
According to Lavrov, the Wagner paramilitaries, classified by Western countries as mercenaries, went to Africa “at the request of African governments to help normalize the situation in the region in the face of the terrorist threat”.
The head of Russian diplomacy mentioned in this regard the Central African Republic (CAR), a country considered Wagner’s laboratory on the African continent, before intervening in other countries, such as Mali and Burkina Faso.
This paramilitary group founded in 2014, with actions denounced and considered by the United States of America (USA) as an international terrorist organization, has established itself as one of the main protagonists of the conflict in Ukraine and its mercenaries have also been sighted in Syria and Libya .
The US, which has been trying to counter Russian influence in Africa for several years, accuses the Wagner group of “committing human rights violations and extorting natural resources” from the African countries where it is present.
In 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on M-Invest, the Russian company accused of serving as a “cover” for the activities of Wagner mercenaries in Sudan.
According to the US Treasury, the company obtained in 2017, under the regime of dictator Omar al-Bashir, “concession contracts to explore the gold resources” of Sudan.
Sudan, for its part, denies the presence of the Russian security group in its territory.
Lavrov’s 48-hour visit to Sudan, the final leg of his African tour after Angola, Mali and Mauritania, is part of Moscow’s effort to bolster its influence on the continent as the West seeks to isolate the country as a result. of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The visit to Sudan began Wednesday night and today he met with General Abddel Fattah el-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader, and with Deputy General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, head of the feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, and the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ali al-Sadiq.
At the end of this meeting, Lavrov declared to the press that Russia supports the efforts of Sudan, a country plunged into a deep economic and political crisis, to put an end to the sanctions imposed on it by the United Nations.
Sudan is subject to a series of sanctions and an arms embargo, imposed in 2005 by the UN during the bloody conflict in Darfur, in the west of the country.
The economy of this East African country, one of the poorest in the world, has been crippled by years of US economic sanctions under Al-Bashir’s regime.
The post-Al-Bashir democratic transition prompted the West to open up: in 2020, Washington removed Sudan from its list of countries that support terrorism and international aid returned, but the coup led on October 25, 2021 by the army chief , General Abddel Fattah el-Burhan, interrupted the transition and the granting of this aid will only resume if civilians return to power, donors warn.
