France and Ukraine have been accused of supporting terrorism in Africa by Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Alexander Venediktov, in an interview with TASS on July 1.
“In fact, an increasing number of states are engaging in this practice,” he said, when asked to name the countries that use terrorists for their own ends and share intelligence with them. Venediktov noted that “Ukraine is actively involved in this, including on the African continent where it is not acting alone,” adding that Ukrainian military advisors in Africa are currently “highly active.”
“We know that France, too, does not shy away from such methods, as do a number of other European states seeking to establish neocolonial control over regions that, at certain points in history, were under their monarchical rule,” he said.
Venediktov’s statement has been backed by official statements by the member states of the Alliance of Sahel States including Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, all of whom have frozen or severed relations with France, accusing the latter of supporting terrorism. On June 26 Burkina Faso announced it was severing relations with France over charges of its support for terrorism. The decision was triggered by a resolution passed in the European Parliament denouncing Burkina Faso as for violating human rights. The resolution was submitted by Christophe Gomart, French Member of the European Parliament as member of the French Les Républicains and the European Peoples Party.
Gomart is a key Atlanticist military intelligence operative. A former general officer in the French Army, he last served as Director of Military Intelligence between 2013–2017. In this capacity he participated in the first meeting of the so-called “Lafayette Committee” in 2016 , whose purpose was to promote the sharing of operational military intelligence and information between the “Five Eyes” (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) and France. Gomart has excellent qualifications to serve as point man in the destabilization of the Sahel states given the fact that in 2011, as commander of special operations, he was directly involved in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan civil war between 2011–2013. It is widely believed that the major genesis of the terrorism plaguing the Sahel was the regional chaos created by that civil war.
Gomart’s brother, Thomas, is Director of France’s counterpart to London’s International Institute of Strategics Studies, the Institut français des relations internationale, where he promotes the idea that Russia represents a threat to the West.
