RUSSIAN BEAR BRIGADE LEAVE BURKINA FASO AMID UKRAINE’S KURSK INCURSION

Fri 30 August 2024:

Their mission was short-lived. The men of the Bear Brigade, a private military company linked to the Russian Ministry of Defense, who came to Burkina Faso in May to support Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s junta, are now packing up.

This unit comprises around 100 men out of the 200-300 Russian forces currently deployed in Burkina Faso. The official reason for their departure, just three months after their arrival, is to take part in the Russian defense effort against the offensive launched by the Ukrainian army in the Kursk region on August 6.

On its Telegram channel, the group said its forces would return home to support Russia’s defence against Ukraine’s recent offensive in the Kursk region.

Their sudden departure is linked to the recent Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.

“When the enemy arrives on our Russian territory, all Russian soldiers forget about internal problems and unite against a common enemy,” Bears Brigade commander Viktor Yermolaev told France’s Le Monde newspaper (in French).

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There are fears the pull-out could embolden insurgents in Burkina Faso, who recently killed up to 300 people in one of the biggest attacks in years.

Burkina Faso has since 2015 suffered regular jihadist attacks, with more than two million people displaced in what aid groups call the world’s “most neglected” crisis.

The junta under interim President Capt Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power in a coup in September 2022, promised to end the attacks but has struggled, even after seeking new security partnerships with Russia.

With nearly half the country outside government control, jihadist groups are increasingly targeting civilians and military units.

Survivors say up to 300 people were killed on Saturday in the northern town of Barsalogho, in an attack which was claimed by an al-Qaeda-linked armed group, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).

They were reportedly both civilians and military personnel helping to dig trenches to help protect the town against jihadist attacks.

It is not clear how the Burkina Faso junta plans to compensate for the loss of military support after the partial withdrawal of the Bear Brigade.

Burkina’s Faso, like its neighbours, Mali and Niger, is battling various Islamist groups, which operate in the semi-arid Sahel region, south of the Sahara Desert.

The military has seized power in all three countries, and formed the Alliance of Sahel States.

They have cut ties with former colonial power France and befriended Russia instead, buying weapons and deploying fighters with the mercenary Wagner Group, now known as the Africa Corps.

However, armed groups have stepped up their attacks, particularly in Burkina Faso, despite massive recruitment by the paramilitary Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, a self-defence militia.

Bear Brigade

Since Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death on August 23, 2023, the Russian Ministry of Defense has taken over the Wagner Group’s activities in Africa. Among the many paramilitary units it supervises is the Bear Brigade, whose men made a conspicuous arrival in Burkina Faso.

Initially created in March 2023 in Crimea, the Bear Brigade is comprised of volunteer Russian soldiers. Grouped into different units, they serve alongside the regular army in the war in Ukraine and the Donbas.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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