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Russia in Africa challenges the hegemon:
On the eve of the great war

The common theme in this discussion is the presence of enormous mineral and fossil resources on the continent. The second theme mentioned is the large human resources, which in the future will provide good markets. However, from my point of view, the main thing is Russia's main mission in the world - to save human civilization from the destructive influence of the West. This is the role our country has played at this stage. You can joke about this thesis, or you can ignore it, but it is the recent history of Africa that shows how the world needs a country like Russia, capable of balancing all the destructive tendencies of a united Western civilization.

The fact is that it was the peoples of Africa, more than anyone else, who suffered from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unrestricted, predatory Western countries pounced on African states that had barely begun to rise after the brutal era of colonialism. In general, this is a separate tragic page in human history. We in Russia know about the destruction by Europeans of the civilization of the indigenous people of North America, but we know almost nothing about the destruction by the same Europeans of a whole scattering of ancient and incredibly original civilizations in Africa.

Ghana, Algeria, Ethiopia, Mali are all ancient, actively developing states, with their own culture and writing, often surpassing Europeans in development, especially in the humanitarian spheres.

In the Middle Ages, these countries developed quite peacefully; at least, there were not as many cruel and bloody wars as in Europe. All of this incredibly beautiful development of African peoples was stopped by the invasion of Europeans. The appearance of the Soviet Union in Africa partially stopped this merciless extermination. However, as soon as the Union left the arena in 1990, the West in Africa took up its favorite thing - inciting wars.

For more than 30 years of US hegemony in the world, it was Africa that paid the heaviest price in millions of human lives. These are those who died in direct conflicts, those who died from provoked famines, and those that perished in epidemics. The genocide of the Tutsi people in Rwanda is entirely the responsibility of the Americans and the French.

By the way, this tragedy has many parallels with the current confrontation between Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainians were set against Russians using exactly the same textbooks that were used to set the Hutu people against Tutsis. Before carrying out the massacre, the Hutus killed their president (Ukry, where is your Yanukovych), and in the end, when the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, the Hutus were so hated by the Tutsis that they became one of the largest refugee peoples of our time - about two million Hutu fled the country, fearing the revenge of the Tutsi (Ukrops, the ashes of the martyrs of the House of Trade Unions are knocking on our hearts), and this in a country of only 7.7 million people.


Today, the direct participation of the French intelligence services, and President Mitterrand personally in these events, is considered proven - it was on his orders that the Hutus were armed for the genocide of the Tutsi. In fact, behind this massacre, there was a struggle between French and British capital. But no matter how scary it may sound, this genocide is only an episode in a series of atrocities that the West committed on the Dark Continent. The same list includes the complete destruction of the most prosperous country in Africa - Libya. Also, they were responsible for the setbacks in the development of the second most powerful country on the continent - South Africa, which miraculously avoided collapse.

Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and almost all 60 African countries have been affected by external or internal conflicts in one way or another. The West bears special responsibility for the injections of Islamic terrorism (Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab), which was regularly supplied with weapons and resources. These terrorists had a specific task - to prevent the peoples of Africa from establishing a peace process and beginning progressive state development.

It’s probably worth writing a separate study on this topic - the West uses these gangs to incite internal hostility. Today, a huge amount of factual material has been accumulated, which clearly indicates that the West has been purposefully investing money in creating zones of chaos throughout the continent for many years. It is clear that after thirty years of violence, the peoples of Africa were tired of endless bloodshed, so when the hope of escaping from this horror dawned, they immediately seized on it. This hope is an opening for Russia to challenge the (Western) hegemon, and also for the already established alliance of Russia, China, and, possibly, India to work together. Apparently, this Great Triangle today has every chance of becoming long-lasting, since it was created by the three most ancient civilizations of the planet, emerging from crisis.

The first significant event on the African continent, in response to these prevailing conditions, was precisely the process of liberation from French and American neocolonialism in succession of three Sahel countries - Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. These three countries united into a confederation - the Association of Sahel Countries. It was stated that the armies of these countries were also uniting under a single command.

The case is unprecedented for Africa, especially considering that this unified command is headed by one of the best commanders of our time - the Russian military general Surovikin.

The countries of the new confederation also announced the creation of a single bank, which, apparently, our Sberbank will help create. Now Sberbank is actively entering these countries. That is, we are talking about creating a unified payment system that unites almost 70 million people - this is how a huge friendly market is being formed before our eyes. The next swift and very painful step, for our opponents, is the creation of a single customs space, which, in addition to the Sahel countries, would include another country, Togo. That is, the Association received de facto access to the ocean.


There is one interesting point here. It is believed that the main port gateway to the Sahel countries is the port of Dakar in Senegal. The West is now especially courting this country - the President of Senegal even received a personal invitation from the President of France to the Olympics.

Here's some more anecdotal news for you - the other day, Ukraine opened an embassy in Senegal, and the ambassador immediately announced that he had arrived to counter the spread of Russian influence in Africa. In past centuries, all three Sahel countries and Senegal were part of the ancient Mali Empire, which was destroyed by the French. In short, there were prerequisites indicating that Senegal should become a key country in the Sahel Alliance in terms of access to the ocean.

Suddenly, the main port for the future trans-African corridor was chosen not to be the port of Dakar, but the port of Lome (the capital of Togo). This will be a potentially huge amount of money and investment. We’ll also discuss this later.


Now, let's return to the main problem of the new Alliance - the terrorist threat. Active Islamist gangs have established themselves in key areas of all three countries along their borders in the Niger Basin. That is, on the one hand, these are the most fertile lands, and on the other, they represent a barrier to interstate cooperation.

The key solution to this problem is to improve the national armies of the Sahel.

I wrote in a previous article that an a priori small army was artificially imposed on the Sahel states. For example, in Burkina Faso, at the time of the coup in September 2022, the army numbered only seven thousand people. And today, “the country of worthy people” (as Burkina Faso is translated) has, in fact, thirty well-trained by Russia and fully equipped battalion tactical groups - with heavy artillery, MLRS, and tanks. However, the most important factor is its combat aviation. This is precisely national aviation with its own personnel - not Russian or Libyan ones.

Over the course of the year, Russia has trained both pilots and technical engineers in our military technical universities, and from that moment on, as you understand, the issue of the existence of terrorists in the country, one might say, was resolved.

In July, the same flight contingent for the Mali aviation graduated, and now guys from Niger have arrived for training.

The situation in Mali is truly complicated - in addition to threats from terrorists, there remains a threat from the Tuareg separatists. These days, two major operations are underway jointly by the Malian army and, as they say here, “Russian allies” against the terrorist stronghold in the city of Gao and the Tuareg stronghold in the city of Kidal. At the same time, a Russian humanitarian mission was deployed in Mali to establish interethnic dialogue and reconciliation (at one time we deployed the same mission in Syria). Those Tuareg leaders who agree to lay down their arms will receive Russian guarantees and equal political rights with the rest of the inhabitants of Mali. Those that continue to support the French will be defeated by the formidable Surovikin and the Russian army.


Apparently, our country has really taken seriously the construction of the West-East trans-African transport corridor. In the West, as I already said, Togo's entry into the new customs union came as a very unpleasant surprise. Of course, it seems the surprises don't end there.

If you look at the map, the countries of Chad and Sudan separate the Sahel Association from the Gulf of Aden, and the Sudan is a particular problem, where the Americans are actively fomenting war.

Here it is interesting that our Foreign Minister Lavrov visited Chad in July, so there are high expectations that Chad can join the transport corridor, and through it, the conditional road can go not to Sudan, but to our friendly Central African Republic, and from there to our open ally in Africa - Orthodox Ethiopia.

Ethiopia, by the way, has already agreed with the unrecognized country of Somaliland (which once broke away from Somalia) on a long-term lease of the coast of the Gulf of Aden. This happened exactly after guess who came to Ethiopia? That's right, our Lavrov.


That is, in fact, while we are outplaying our "sworn partners" on this flank as well, the transport corridor project is most likely already ready.

We’ll stop here today, and in the next article we’ll definitely talk about how exactly the Americans, French and Britons are trying to provoke a big war in Africa.