Russia has deployed up to 200 military instructors to Equatorial Guinea in recent weeks to protect the presidency, sources have said, showing that Moscow is expanding its footprint in West Africa despite a recent defeat in Mali.
The sources said the Russians were training elite guards in the two main cities of the tiny oil-exporting country of 1.7 million people, where U.S. energy firms invested billions of dollars in the first decade of the century before scaling down.
The deployment fits into a wider pattern of waning Western influence and increasing Russian interventions in West and Central Africa, where Moscow has sent thousands of mercenaries to protect military regimes and help them fight insurgents.
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