Russia Says Ukrainian Troops Now Operating In Mali

@justanothername But it is not like the western media got caught lying multiple times about multiple conflicts. or ran a CIA propaganda operation controlling the media, or that the US issued a court ruling that the media is under no obligation to present facts or the truth......oh wait.

@Bel6EQUJ5 update: Ukraine admitted today via this picture in the Kyiv Post that jt has operatives working with rebel Tauregs in Mali.

I'm uncertain if they are coordinating with Al-Qaeda in the region or not (Biden has done airstrikes against ISIS K in support of the Taliban on the ground AFTER the pullout of Afghanistan so it's possible we (as in Ukraine) are allying with them on some basis. I don't have data on this so am confused, orher than in the last few days everyone in Niger and Mali suddenly got way smarter, and are coordinating between histoeically distinct groups.

Next President and AFRICOM will have to figure this out, because we were just systemmatically drone striking them a mere year ago.

@Dignaga I don't understand what the Ukrainian government hopes to achieve by doing this, because at the moment they're not exactly winning in their own war against Russia in their own country. I'm wondering how they could possibly spare the cash, troops and resources for something this misguided.

@Bel6EQUJ5 Russia has been building up gold reserves for decades to keep their currency afloat incase another Reagan came along and targeted it's economy. This allows it to secure loans.

Immediately after the a armitice is achieved (unlikely to be a fully fledged peace treaty, more like Nkrth Korea and South Korea) they will be trying to buy Chinese tanks and CPUs, North Korean and Indian arms, just like it currently buys Iranian missiles.

It's ruble isn't going to be worth much, because Ukraine will still be sabotaging stuff, and in the upcoming decade alot of pipeline will fail naturally in Russia (I used to patrol the alaskan pipeline and saddam's pipeline on our base (a powerplant) aged out and self ignited feom old age and poor maintence). Alot of the Russian Dark fleet is barely floating, and it will start capsizing, and nations will start attacking russian assets abroad to pay for the cleanup (Ukraine destroyed alot of russia's storage capacity, so russia is fkrced to put crude oil directly into oil tankers and get them sailing to make profits, they can't shut down pil fields because they will freeze and you can't just turn them back on again because that requires western equipment).

One of the ways Russia has gotten around these difficulties is by building a empire in Africa. I think eventually they will get into the mesoamerican and Venezuelan cartels like Iran has. They've had everything set up to do it, like China did, but China went the Fentanyl route. I'm uncertain which direction Russia will take in it, but it's a area of potential revenue.

Russia started this strategy in Syria but Trump stopped it. Syria (Assad) gave the area around conoco fields to russia as payment for help in the civil war, 30 year leases. I have no doubt they would of developed the oil fields (and they did try to take them, but Trump slaughtered them), but the agriculture aspect always stumled me. It's not the best area for growing crops.... it can be done, but costly. I think they were planning on geowing drugs and flooding the european market with them. Russia doesn't have the best climate for that.

Basically they are after whatever is of value that can keep their centeal bank giving out loans and buy international arms and luxury imports. The Sahel was a easy target given French policy since the end of the French Empire. Iran has been targeting it too, and from Pre-Olympic chatter I've seen, it appears the FSB is the ones sabotaging the French Olympics. It is fairly ckst effective demonstration of power, they largely knocked France out of the fight in the long term.

The old ECOWAS states Russia sheared off will be fairly easy to retake, 15 years max using irregular warfare using special forces. Other areas harder. Ukraine is in Sudan and Mali now, and likely Niger. It's only going to expand. This could of been easily prevented early by Biden by getting ex military contract mercenaries to embed themselves with elements of the old local governments that survived the coups, but he didn't. He let a bunch of poorly equipped junta light infantry driving technicals (trucks with machine guns mounted in the back) attack every protest and isolate loyalist military units. They didn't have anypoint to fall back to and regroup, and couldn't flee to US bases because Biden immediately backed the juntas hoping they would let him stay and fight ISIS. It was never going to work the second Russia showed up. However, Ukraine alone is unlikely to succeed (they had aome success in Sudan, but it's a bloodbath, will take years.)

They really need international bases to train up and equip soldiers still loyal to the old governments, kr willing to form new ones. You can take small cities in the 50,000 range with a battalion or two, but not the big sprawling cities. ECOWAS is too broke to pull this off right now (imagine Russia occupied half of NATO, the other half would be in a economic spiral). But the half that held together speaks english and has atlantic coastlines. They can take shipments, you don't necessarily need to give them tanks, technicles with rocket launchers and 50 cals, fuel, drones, machine guns, etc. Also a embargo on Chinese and Russian arms showing up in these ports and being shipped north needs to be implemented- or else you'll have Russian, Chinese and ECOWAS/Western factions fighting each other like during the cold war. The cold war was very hot in Africa.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Macron already lost them. And it was purely by accident, Prigozhin was making sudden headways into africa at a startling speed and it caught Moscow off guard. Russian MOD only moved in on Wagner's turf after Prigozhin aborted his march on Moscow. Wagner is still in the region (brand name recognition but under MOD), and it has well expanded past what Prigozhin was doing. US held out longer than France.

It would of been alot better had we just hired operatives from Academi to do what Ukraine is now doing to run havoc from day one, back before Prigozhin died, as soon as it became apparent Russia was making a territorial bid. US didn't really want any financial assets like France or Russia wanted, and having Biden's Deer In The Headlights approach of wait and see didn't work out at all. I would of had mercenaries out in the field immediately after the coups started happening, while pulling out the bases- unless the local legitimate civilian government fled to them fkr protecrion, in which case I would of agreed going 50-50 with France and the Foreign Legion on manpower to beef up security and airpower to them to hold the local army at bay. The junta's army is mostly light infantry with some mech and ancient tanks. Think a base with a battalion of American Airborne and a Battalion of French troops reinforcing them could of held out.

I stead it was Biden making stupid faces while pleading with the junta to please be nice and release the president (instead of rescuing the president) and please let us stay to bomb ISIS.

We should of had guys hitting the russians before they had time to take over the mines. That soon. Let them know Africa was going to be heavily contested. It wasn't free picking. ECOWAS, especially Nigeria would of supported us if we needed a logistical rear, they kept threatening to invade after all.

Biden just pisses me off, gonna take decades to boot Russia out of Africa now.