One of the officers responsible for the Niger coup, General Salifou Mody, visited Mali on Wednesday and met with government representatives.
Mody and his entourage met with Col. Assimi Goita, who took over the landlocked nation of West Africa almost three years ago.
Especially now that Mali has accepted up to 1,000 fighters from the Wagner Group, Western nations worry that Niger may come under the influence of Russia following the coup.
Following last week’s coup, Burkina Faso and Mali, another country ruled by a military dictatorship, have taken the rare step of saying that any foreign military intervention in neighboring Niger would be deemed a declaration of war against them as well.
The former coloniser of modern-day Mali, Guinea, Niger, Burkina Faso, and other countries in west and central Africa, France, has been the target of some of the discontent in Niger and its neighbors over government shortcomings in combating corruption and the threat from Islamic extremism.
By portraying itself to African countries as a nation that never conquered the continent, Russia has played into these views, earning sympathy in Mali and other vulnerable countries for Moscow and the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner.
Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani issued a rare speech to the nation of West Africa after taking over from the democratically elected leader of Niger a week prior, in which he cautioned against outside interference and military action to put down the coup.
