As the last remaining French soldiers leave Niger, the first Russian officials are already being welcomed by Abdourahamane Tiani's junta. On Monday, December 4, the general who came to power in a coup four months ago received the Russian deputy defense minister, Colonel General Yunus-bek Yevkurov, with full honors in an unprecedented visit by a Russian official.
Just like the juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso, Niger's new masters have announced the "strengthening of defense cooperation" with Moscow. Although a protocol agreement has been signed, its content remains top secret according to a government adviser. Yevkurov also met with the defense minister, General Salifou Mody, who is seen as the junta's number two.
At the same time, Niger has broken ties with one of its most important Western partners. In a note sent to the European Union delegation in Niamey on Monday, it denounced the two agreements governing European support for Niger's defense and security forces. Eucap Sahel, the 130-strong civilian mission set up in 2012 to support the country's border security forces, and EUMPM, the military mission installed there in 2022 to help Nigerien soldiers fight terrorism, have been asked to pack up.
At the end of November, the Nigerien authorities put an end to one of the main pillars of European cooperation in Africa by repealing a law that penalized the illegal trafficking of migrants. "It was the EU itself that suspended its security cooperation with us after the coup. As they no longer want us, neither do we want them" the official quoted above said, "our alliances with the West have prevailed since colonization and have not brought us good fortune. We need to get rid of them and move closer to other countries."
The break with Europe represents another divorce after that with France, the ally of overthrown president Mohamed Bazoum, who is still being held by the ruling military. In August, the junta demanded the dismissal of French ambassador, Sylvain Itté and the withdrawal of the 1,500 French soldiers. In addition, on Tuesday, Niger, along with Mali, denounced the agreements signed in the 1960s and 1970s with Paris to exempt French individuals and companies based in these Sahelian countries from being taxed twice.
Faced with sanctions and admonitions directed at Europe, the contingent of 1,100 US troops in Niger is keeping a low profile in an attempt to maintain its foothold. On the eve of the Russian delegation's arrival in Niamey, US Ambassador Kathleen FitzGibbon, in the country since mid-August, presented the junta with her letters of credence, a further step towards formalizing her appointment.
Russia is nevertheless emerging as the new preferred partner. A power that did not colonize Africa and that trained many of the continent's soldiers after independence, Russia also offers lethal weapons without demanding human rights accountability in return. It is also providing planes, helicopters, weapons, and mercenaries from its private security group Wagner to Mali as well as enhanced security cooperation to Burkina Faso (notably through the training of military personnel), where it also pledges to build a civilian nuclear power plant and provide healthcare assistance. The offer is seductive for the juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and now Niger, all three of which came to power promising to defeat the jihadist groups that have continued to plague their territory despite Western military support.
Despite their differences, the three countries have chosen to strengthen their alliance. After Bamako a year ago, Niamey and Ouagadougou announced on December 1 their decision to leave the G5 Sahel group, a framework for political and military cooperation with Chad and Mauritania created with France's approval in 2014 to fight jihadist groups, on the grounds that the alliance served foreign interests. The countries created the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in September in the face of the threat of military intervention by other West African countries to dislodge the junta in Niger.
The new bloc is the focus of most of Moscow's diplomatic efforts on the continent in recent months. According to Flightradar24, a website specializing in air traffic monitoring, before landing in Niamey on December 3, the Russian military aircraft carrying General Yevkurov's official delegation made stopovers in Bamako and Ouagadougou. The Russian deputy defense minister had already paid a first visit to Burkina Faso in September and October.
While the Burkinabe junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who was guest of honor at the last Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg at the end of July, has not communicated on Yevkurov's latest stay, the government of Colonel Assimi Goïta in Mali detailed its outlines on December 2. In Bamako, "important decisions were taken," the president's office noted on its Facebook page, referring to "the dispatch [...] in the next two weeks [...] of Russian experts in various sectors [energy, transport, telecommunications, mining]." The president's office also stressed Moscow's "satisfaction with the creation of the AES, which it sees as an ideal framework for cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Sahel states." At the end of a meeting of their three heads of diplomacy in Bamako between November 30 and December 1, the three countries expressed that their ambition for the Alliance of Sahel States was "to eventually achieve a federation."
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.