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Central African government spokesman Anj Maxim Kazagi said the Russian military had arrived as part of a bilateral cooperation agreement. On the eve of the presidential elections in the country, the confrontation between the rebel groups and the current government intensified.
Russia has shipped several hundred military and heavy equipment to the Central African Republic (CAR), RCA government spokesman Anj Maxim Kazagi said. He is quoted by the French newspaper Le Figaro.
The Russian army flocked to the Central African Republic after three armed rebel groups launched an offensive against the republic’s capital, Bangui.
Kazagi noted that the Russian military came as part of a bilateral cooperation agreement. He did not specify the number of soldiers, their location and date of arrival. According to him, “several hundred soldiers who are already fighting” were also sent by Rwanda.
Fighters from Russian private security companies are protecting the President of the Central African Republic, Faustin Archange Touadera, and Russian military advisers are training local military personnel, Le Figaro writes.
An Air Force interlocutor close to the UN mission in the Central African Republic, on condition of anonymity, said that the Russian army arrived in Bangui on the morning of Sunday, December 20, by plane. It was difficult for him to accurately assess their numbers, but noted that there are now many more Russians in the capital than usual. According to him, they are staying in the palace of Emperor Bokassa, 30 km from Bangui.
The Russian ambassador to the Central African Republic, Vladimir Titorenko, commenting on the reports of the dispatch of Russian military personnel to this country, said that there are no Russian military personnel there except for five employees of the representative office of the Ministry of Defense in the capital of Bangui. It is cited by RIA Novosti.
According to the diplomat, Russian instructors work in the Central African Republic who train the army at the request of the government of this country. They are rotated periodically. This is well known to both the UN Security Council and the entire world community, the ambassador said. Another 14 Russian officers serve in the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow is closely monitoring information about the situation in the country and considers it a cause for serious concern, Interfax reported.
In the Central African Republic, since 2012, a war has continued between rebel groups and the current government, whose forces are supported by the UN peacekeepers, the BBC notes. In recent days, the rebels have occupied several settlements near the capital and have taken control of the roads leading to it. The peacekeepers said the offensive in Bangui stopped and they are trying to prevent the capital from being surrounded.
Anti-government forces are trying to prevent President Touadera from being re-elected for a second term. The presidential elections are scheduled for December 27, and the parliamentary elections will take place at the same time. The republic authorities accuse the country’s former president, François Bozizet, of supporting the rebels. His party denies it.
In 2018, “a detachment of Russian military specialists arrived in the Central African Republic to improve the security of the head of state.” The arrivals included five Russians, career military intelligence officers and employees of two private military companies, Sewa Security Services and Lobaye Ltd. Most experts were convinced that it was the so-called “Wagner mercenary group”.
Russia and the Central African Republic signed a military cooperation agreement in August 2018. Subsequently, a center was set up in the city of Berengo, where Russian instructors taught the soldiers of the Central African Republic “to handle weapons and conduct hostilities.”
A few weeks before the conclusion of a military cooperation agreement, at the end of July 2018, Russian journalists Orkhan Dzhemal, Alexander Rastorguev and Kirill Radchenko were assassinated in the Central African Republic. They came to the country to film a documentary about Wagner’s mercenaries believed to be working in the Central African Republic.
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