Eleven West African nations have agreed to commit troops to a military deployment aimed at restoring Niger’s democratically elected president following last month’s coup, an official for the regional bloc said Friday after a defense ministers meeting.
It has been reported that the Wagner group (Russia) supported the coup in some way. Russia does have an interest in getting African nations to support them instead of the West, so it would make sense.
I could be wrong because I’m definitely not an expert here, but I don’t think Wagner has been shown to be involved yet. The junta has asked for Wagner’s help and Wagner has been active in several neighbouring countries, so they’re absolutely not a million miles away, but it looks like the actual coup happened without them
While Russia has an interest in weakening the regional power, France, Wagner doesn’t appear to be involved.
The ousted President was going to fire the chief of the military and the Chief moved first.