PARIS (Reuters) – France and 14 European allies as well as Canada on Thursday condemned what they said was the deployment of Russian mercenary forces in the West African country of Mali.
“We are aware of the involvement of the Russian Federation government in providing material support to the deployment of the Wagner group in Mali and call on Russia to revert to a responsible and constructive behavior in the region,” the countries said in a statement.
They said they deeply regretted the choice of Mali’s transitional authorities to use already scarce public funds to pay foreign mercenaries instead of supporting their own armed forces and public services.
The European Union has reacted with alarm to reports that Russian mercenaries could deploy to Mali to help its government battle Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.
Thursday’s statement was issued by France, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania and Sweden.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Juliette Jabkhiro; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Bernadette Baum)
