The Russian ambassador accredited to Ouagadougou and residing in Abidjan, is visiting the Burkinabe capital where he met with the Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyelem de Tambèla and several government officials.Ouagadougou and Moscow will “draw up a roadmap” for their bilateral cooperation. 

“From this, we will see what Russia could bring to Burkina Faso in the framework of security and the fight against terrorism,” Russian Ambassador to Burkina Faso Alexey Saltykov said on Thursday after meeting Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyelem de Tambèla.

 Beyond the issue of security, the talks also focused on the possibilities of formalising technical and financial cooperation between Moscow and Ouagadougou, a wish expressed at the political level by the two states. 

The Russian diplomat added that his country is willing to accompany Burkina Faso through a transfer of emerging technologies in several sectors.

 The two parties expressed the desire to move quickly and agreed to continue the exchanges to define as soon as possible the contours of a mutually beneficial economic cooperation framework.

 “We have achieved successes, especially after the sanctions imposed on my country, and I am sure that several areas of cooperation will be of interest to our Burkinabe partners,” Ambassador Alexey Saltykov said.

 Since the beginning of September 2022, voices regularly call on the new authorities to get closer to Russia at the expense of France, to find a solution to the scourge of terrorism which has rocked the country for seven years.  

The head of government, who has been in Moscow, has several times affirmed the need to diversify partnerships, fuelling rumours that the Burkinabe authorities are using the services of the Russian paramilitary group, Wagner. 

On a visit to Ouagadougou, the French Secretary of State for Development, Francophonie and International Partnerships was careful not to comment on “hypotheses,” but said that “every choice has its consequences.”