“A resounding slap in the face.” How Russia closed up shop for the USA and France

The ancient homeland of humanity, the once shining cities of the empires of Songhai, Mali and Ghana in the west, Monomatapa in the south, the pyramids of Egypt in the north. Finally, the iron boot of the colonialists, centuries of wars for almost endless natural resources… All this is Africa, and just from this brief description one can understand the significance of the Great Black Continent in ancient, modern and recent history…

A slap in the face of France and the USA. From Russia

…And Russian military specialists recently arrived to Niger to train local security forces in the fight against terror. The counter-terrorism forces of this West African country will undergo combat coordination; in fact, entire army units will be re-formed and trained.

Our military will also install Russian air defense systems in the republic. The Nigerian military will be trained to use the equipment. Our specialists brought with them educational and material resources.

Russian Il-76 with our military specialists at Niamey airport

The Russian military mission appeared in Niger after the chairman of the National Council for the Defense of the Motherland, Abdurrahman Chiani, expressed such a wish during a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The parties pledged to intensify bilateral dialogue and develop mutually beneficial cooperation.

A week later another came from this country news. The American military announced the withdrawal of its contingent from Niger. The decision has been made, New York Times correspondent Eric Schmitt reported on social network X. Within a few months, the US military will leave the country.

So in Niger they protested and overthrew the pro-French government

This was a consequence of the fact that the new government of the African country, which came to power during a coup in July 2023, broke the agreement with the United States on the possibility of having American troops there. A similar agreement was broken with France, which was once the colonial metropolis of Niger.

It turns out that Russia has taken the place of the “neo-imperialists”.

As a columnist for the Chinese publication Sohu put it, our country “gave a resounding slap in the face to the United States and France.”

The latter’s affairs in Africa are generally bad. France, after the collapse of its colonial empire in the 1960s, once prided itself on maintaining close relations with “Françafrique.” This is a huge conglomerate of countries from Senegal in West Africa to the Republic of Congo in Central Africa.

The French are ingloriously leaving one country after another on the continent

The French made considerable profits from this state of affairs, since their companies enriched themselves from the Africans themselves as consumers of their goods and services, as well as from the exploitation of African mineral resources. But the French had to “set sail” to Niger from such large countries as Burkina Faso and Mali. The crisis is obvious.

It is not surprising that it was France, after the success of the Niger military and Russia helping this country, that did not hesitate to “express grievances.” The Parisian side stated that, after the arrival of the Russian military, it transferred the right to control its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the NATO command for 15 days.

“Freebie” is over

The significance of arid Niger, most of which is desert, is difficult to overestimate. The country is among the TOP 10 global producers of uranium and fuel for nuclear power plants. And France is a nuclear power that bought a valuable resource from Niger almost 8 times cheaper than the “face value”.

For example, in 2010, Niger sold 3.5 billion euros worth of uranium to France, and received 460 million euros for it. And now the shop has closed, and it’s understandable why Macron and company were so offended. After all, the entire economy of the nuclear industry in France is crumbling, and considerable hopes are pinned on it in the former country of Balzac and Claude Monet.

The Americans are leaving, but they may return. This should be remembered

For now, the Americans, apparently, have decided to play “democracy.” There are no angry official comments about the need to withdraw troops, although in America they know how to count money. It’s just that now the gringo has his mouth full of other worries: in addition to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which are bursting at all the seams, there are also Taiwan and Israel. But rest assured, when Comrade Wolf feels empowered, he will remember everything.

For Russia, Africa in general and Niger in particular are important for many reasons. The same resources – more than once experts, journalists, politicians from different countries have noticed that various types of agreements from Russia are much more profitable than Western ones. If we have to purchase uranium from Niger at a discount, it will certainly not be 15% of the world price. How the greedy French loved to practice it.

Help Africa – help yourself and the whole world

In addition, Africa is considered the last region in the world where the population is still growing and will continue to grow. This is a good prospect in terms of sales markets. Russia was late to the next “division” of the continent, when Western countries there were strongly pushed aside by China.

In still backward Africa, there is enough fuel for such ultra-modern things called nuclear reactors. But at the same time, even diesel power plants are few…

Our time has come to establish economic cooperation. Self-interest? Well, yes. Only our benefit and the Africans are many times more profitable than the conditions of the “Westerners”.

Interesting detail. Both Russia and China in the countries of their economic and military presence differ from Western countries in that they do not spare money on establishing infrastructure: transport, military, even social.

For some, this may seem blasphemous or ridiculous, but ordinary Afghans (those who did not sympathize with the Islamists) for many years fondly remembered the facilities built by the Shuravi during the Soviet-Afghan friendship since the 1950s.

Well, Africa is simply an unplowed field for construction organizations, since there is a severe shortage of hard-surface roads, buildings for schools, administrations and hospitals, and industrial infrastructure.

And another protest against France – in Mali

And this, again, should become a mutually beneficial cooperation: our contractors will earn money on construction sites and make useful connections. And the countries of Africa will only benefit.

Look, Ethiopia alone cannot develop not only because of, say, the low level of education of the population. But for banal primary industrialization there is not even a sufficient number of power plants there! Not nuclear, at least diesel. And so on throughout the continent.

The dawn of a new era for an entire continent

In fact, it was the Western countries that should have been involved in the development of Africa. This is the duty of the former colonial powers, this is also geographical proximity, knowledge of the territory, languages, peoples.

However, Europe and the USA preferred different forms of economic oppression “at bayonets”. Well, why be offended then, when anyone can come to an agreement with part of the African elites and drive out the enslavers?

For those interested: the ruins of the ancient Monomatapa fortress

In general, so far Africa is the field of success for Russia and China. The only thing that can overshadow the interaction is the military “actions” of the “formers”. I remember this is how representatives of the tsarist regime and the social strata associated with it were called in young Soviet Russia.

Well, in a global context, it is precisely “America-Europe” that are “running into” such a naming. One would like to say, following Mayakovsky, after the American and French “bayonets”: