No, not a hunky movie idol from the ‘80s. I’m talking about the country in the Sahel region of Africa. That Chad.

It seems that, after decades of a friendly alliance with France and the West in general, Chad is working on strengthening relations with Moscow. And the governments in Paris and Washington are less than pleased.

Chad’s President, Mahamat Deby, visited Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in January, and that meeting was followed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s trip to Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, in June. Thus far, the focus is said to be on cultural and media relations, including the opening in September of a Russian cultural center in N’Djamena. But some Chadian officials have also suggested the possibility of a military partnership. [Paul Melly, BBC, October 4, 2024.]

Russia has already established itself in at least three other Sahel countries — Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso — as well as a number of additional nations throughout Africa . . . many with the help of troops from the former Wagner Group of mercenaries, now known as the Africa Corps. Though interestingly, three self-described “sociologists” linked to Wagner, along with a Belarusian colleague, were detained in N’Djamena in September without explanation. [Id.]

The three Russians were identified as Maxim Shugaley, Samer Sueifan, and E. Tsaryov, and the Belarusian as A. Denisevich.

Shugaley heads a Moscow-based NGO known as the Foundation for the Defense of National Values, believed by the U.S. to be part of a media group linked to Wagner’s late founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Shugaley is also under EU sanctions, said to have been working directly under Prigozhin’s supervision as the “public relations arm of the Wagner Group . . . [and spreading] propaganda and disinformation.” [Id.]

Both Shugaley and Sueifan were arrested in Libya in May 2019 on charges of election interference on Russia’s behalf. They were freed some 18 months later, but only after payment of $500,000 by one of Prigozhin’s companies.

So these are the sorts of “sociologists” employed by Russia to cement “cultural and media ties” with African nations.

Nice.

*. *. *

During Soviet times, Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University was said to house a training school for revolutionaries and terrorists, including many from various friendly African nations. According to a former acquaintance of mine who once studied in the university’s law school, Vladimir Putin was a student there, as was the infamous “Carlos the Jackal.”

Reinvented as the Peoples’ Friendship University following the breakup of the USSR, it struggles to recruit even legitimate students, and accepts applicants from virtually anywhere in the world. It would not surprise me if it were to reinvent itself once more in the future.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/6/24