The Russian private paramilitary company Wagner is present in Mali and Libya on a “commercial basis”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today.
In an interview with Italian television station Mediaset, Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s position that Wagner “has nothing to do with the Russian state.”
The Wagner company, widely known to be close to President Vladimir Putin, is accused of hiring mercenaries who have committed atrocities in Mali, Libya and Syria.
According to the Russian Foreign Minister, Moscow gave explanations to France on this issue when the French government “got angry because Wagner signed an agreement with the government of Mali to provide security services”.
“My dear colleague Jean-Yves Le Drian and (the head of European diplomacy) Josep Borrell, in September 2021, told me directly that Russia had no job in Africa, neither by state nor by private means. “Africa is a region of (interest) of the EU and France,” Lavrov said.
“We also explained that in Libya,” this private military company was invited by the authorities to Tobruk, where the parliament is located. They are present there on a commercial basis, as well as in Mali, “the Russian diplomat assured.
The Bamako government that emerged after the military coup, for its part, speaks of the presence in its territory of ordinary Russian advisers.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 mercenaries from the Russian paramilitary Wagner or Syrian and Libyan militias are currently fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, according to a European official.
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