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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to meet Colonel Assimi Goïta, head of the Malian junta, on Tuesday during a visit to Mali aimed at “boosting a new dynamic” in the growing cooperation between Bamako and Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Mali early Tuesday, February 7, in the midst of a security and political idyll between Moscow and the ruling junta in Bamako.
Sergei Lavrov, who was in Iraq on Monday, was greeted when he got off the plane around 1:30 a.m. (local and GMT) by his counterpart Abdoulaye Diop. The two men did not make a statement to reporters. Sergei Lavrov will be received on Tuesday by the head of the junta, Colonel Assimi Goïta. Discussions with Abdoulaye Diop and a press conference are also scheduled.
Sergei Lavrov’s visit to this country plagued by jihadist violence and a deep multidimensional crisis must last less than 24 hours and concretizes the rapprochement operated by the Malian colonels since 2021, at the same time as they broke the military alliance with France and its partners.
“New Dynamics”
Although Malian ministers have visited Moscow several times since, the arrival of Sergei Lavrov is presented by the Malian authorities as the “first of its kind”. His visit “materializes the firm will” of Presidents Assimi Goïta and Vladimir Poutine “to stimulate a new dynamic” in their cooperation in the fields of defense and security as well as at the economic level, indicated Malian Foreign Affairs.
The soldiers who seized power by force in 2020 in Mali and consolidated their hold with a second putsch in 2021 have made Russia their main ally once morest the jihadists. The arrival of fighters linked to Russia on Malian soil was reported as early as the end of 2021. They would be hundreds to fight alongside Malian soldiers.
The Malian authorities present them as instructors dispatched in the name of historic state-to-state cooperation. They claim their presence as the expression of a freedom of strategic choice which the junta has made its mantra with the defense of sovereignty. Westerners and rights organizations say they are mercenaries from the Russian company Wagner, whose actions are decried elsewhere in Africa or in Ukraine. Mali has also received war planes and helicopters delivered by Russia on different occasions.
The outcome of this change of strategic footing is controversial. The Malian authorities claim to have reversed the dynamic once morest the jihadists. The UN paints a darker picture. Alarming news has been coming for months from the regions of Timbuktu, Gao and Ménaka (north and northeast) where fighting between jihadists and armed groups is causing numerous civilian casualties and causing massive displacements.
Influencing strategy
Sergei Lavrov arrives in Mali as the former Tuareg rebellion and armed groups that signed an important peace agreement with the central state in 2015 have suspended their participation in this agreement. The Malian army’s new allies have been repeatedly accused of abuses once morest civilian populations by rights organizations and witnesses.
Less than 48 hours before the arrival of Sergei Lavrov, the junta announced the expulsion of the head of the human rights division of the UN mission (Minusma). The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the junta to “immediately rescind this regrettable decision”.
Beyond Mali, Sergei Lavrov’s visit is part of a strategy of influence on the whole continent, where many countries have refrained from condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sergei Lavrov made his second African tour in six months in January. Africa, the terrain of bitter economic and political competition between the great powers, is at the same time the scene of an American diplomatic offensive.
With AFP
