Several dozen Russian soldiers are currently deployed in the city of Timbuktu, in the north-west of the country. Officially, it is ” to train The Malian army and other soldiers are still expected even though there are already several hundred in Mali.
With our correspondent in Bamako, Serge Daniel
In a laconic tone, a Malian military source confides ” It’s called after-sales service. We had acquired military equipment from Russia and Russian instructors are in Timbuktu to train our troops. Where is the problem ? Our interlocutor does not want to give figures and other details.
Trainers
The presence of Russian soldiers in Timbuktu is also confirmed from an independent source. Witnesses saw them behind the wheel of a vehicle, not far from the military camp of the Malian Armed Forces (Fama), not far from the base liberated last month by the French soldiers from Operation Barkhane. The role of these Russian instructors could be in particular the training of Malians to pilot helicopters recently bought in Russia.
If for the moment, our various sources agree in saying that in Timbuktu, it is indeed Russian instructors present, elsewhere on the national territory, opinions differ. The official line here is clear: there are only Russian instructors in the field. False, retort several other European countries and local sources.
Mercenaries too
Mercenaries from the private Russian company Wagner would be well in Malian localities, in particular in the center where the army is strengthening its positions. According to our information this week, the Malian army protested vigorously when a foreign plane flew low over one of its camps not far from Mopti.
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