Moscow supports military junta
Russian soldiers are moving to base with US soldiers in Niger
May 3, 2024, 5:06 p.m
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Since the coup in Niger, the country’s military junta has increasingly turned to Moscow. Due to strained relations, Washington wants to withdraw its troops from there. According to the Pentagon, Russian soldiers are already at a base where US military personnel are also located.
According to the US government, Russian soldiers in Niger have been relocated to a military airfield where US troops are also stationed. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to the US state of Hawaii that the Russian deployment did not pose a “significant problem in terms of protecting our armed forces.” The Russians are on a separate site and have “no access to US forces or our equipment.”
The base, according to a senior Pentagon official, is Air Base 101, located next to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of Niger. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov neither wanted to confirm nor deny reports about the Russian presence at the base in Niger. Since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, tensions between Washington and Moscow have increased significantly.
In Niger, the soldiers of the former ally USA stationed there were asked by the new rulers to leave the country after a military coup last year. The military rulers canceled the defense alliance with Washington, saying it had been forced on the country. Last month, US government officials announced that Washington would comply with the request and withdraw its more than 1,000 soldiers from the West African country.
On July 26, 2023, the military overthrew the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum in Niger, took power and increasingly turned to Russia. Until then, Niger was considered one of the last allies in the region for the USA and the former colonial power France. They use Niger as a starting point for operations against jihadists. The last French soldiers left the country in December due to demands from the military government.