Junta-led Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have secured military backing from Russia ahead of the planned deployment of joint forces in the central Sahel region.
The foreign ministers of the three West African countries travelled to Moscow for meetings beginning on Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The ministers agreed to facilitate acquisition of “major and high-performance military equipment and appropriate training” for the force and Russia is ready “to provide the necessary technical assistance”, it said.
The West African nations, governed by military juntas that seized power in recent coups, have formed a body known as the Alliance of Sahel States to counter the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which they have withdrawn from, accusing it of being influenced by France.
All three countries’ armies are fighting a jihadist insurgency that has spread across the region south of the Sahara since it first happened in Mali in 2012.
The largely rural insurgency has killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions.
