– Military ‘trainers’ –The UN says Mamadou was released on January 15 thanks to the intervention of the Internal Security Forces (FSI). Moscow has already supplied weapons, military officers, at least 170 military “trainers” and a security adviser to work with President Faustin-Archange Touadera. According to reports in Russian and Western media, the military trainers are mercenaries with close ties to Russian mining companies and the numbers deployed could be significantly higher than officially reported. Last month, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian criticised the presence of Russian mercenaries in CAR from the private military company Wagner. Three Russian journalists who were investigating the Wagner group were ambushed and murdered in CAR last year.

Source: The Guardian February 12, 2019 20:26 UTC