Russian soldiers and missiles in Madagascar. The junta is strengthening its alliance with the Kremlin

After the coup that brought Colonel Michael Randrianirina to power in October, Madagascar allied with Russia, which had just sent weapons, including rocket launchers and its soldiers, to this East African island.

Sitini Randrianasoloniako, who led the opposition before the coup and now chairs the National Assembly, told Bloomberg that a Russian military plane landed at an airport near the capital Antananarivo on Saturday with 40 soldiers and 43 weapons crates that included assault rifles, sniper rifles and anti-tank missile systems.

Just after the coup, Randrianirina declared that he would allow Russia to build a military base on the island. The Kremlin has been seeking this for at least five years, as reported in 2020 by the German daily Bild, citing a secret report from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Accepting Russian military support means that the military junta in Madagascar has followed in the footsteps of the Sahel countries: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which are also ruled by the military and which, after the coups, broke off cooperation with France and the United States and entered into a military alliance with Russia.

It is consistently expanding its presence in Africa, where it signs military cooperation agreements and sends units from its African Corps across the continent.. They are present, among others, in civil war-torn Sudan, whose military authorities have offered Moscow a 25-year cooperation agreement, potentially including a Russian military base on the Red Sea in exchange for weapons.

According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), which deals with the prevention and resolution of armed conflicts in the world, since 2015, Russia has concluded military cooperation agreements with 21 African countries.

Since independence, Madagascar's armed forces have relied on military assistance from many countries, but historically it was France, to which Madagascar fell until 1960, that was the island's most powerful and influential military ally.

Tadeusz Brzozowski (PAP)

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