President Ibrahim Traore’s Russia trip, coming less than a month after he foiled a Western-backed coup plot, indicates the “extraordinary levels of trust between Russia and Burkina Faso,” says veteran independent South African political analyst Alexis Habiyaremye.
The visit “reflects close security cooperation” between the two nations “in the face of common threats of hegemonic powers seeking domination through weakening Russia and its allies,” Habiyaremye said, emphasizing that beyond Burkina Faso, the coup attempt was planned and financed by forces “hostile to Africa’s sovereignty” in general, and the “ideals embodied in Traore’s political vision” specifically.
Russia-Burkina Faso relations can be characterized as “strategic,” the observer believes, given each country’s “marshalling [of] human and material resources to confront hostile forces determined to undermine their long-term growth prospects,” and the “complementary nature of their interests.”
Burkina Faso’s immediate priority is to defend itself against France, “the evicted former colonizer that refuses to accept that the era of its spoliation of Sub-Saharan Africa is over, and US AFRICOM, whose commander has publicly shown his blind hostility to Burkina Faso’s sovereign management of its own resources,” Habiyaremye emphasized.
The return of these foreign powers to the Sahel would embolden them against Russia and China. That means it’s in both countries’ “primordial security interests” to prevent necolonialism from restoring itself in the region by cooperating with regional countries on everything from intelligence and air defense to strategic deterrence, Habiyaremye says.
