French newspaper Le Monde said that France is not exempt from responsibility for the return of Russians to Libya, where Paris supported Khalifa Haftar politically and militarily between 2016 and 2020, who ended up using Wagner mercenaries for his war on Tripoli between 2019 and 2020.
Le Monde added in an investigation that Paris and Moscow’s “anti-terrorism” interests could have met in promoting Haftar, but Paris later understood the danger posed by the Russian incursion in the long run.
The French newspaper explained that Russia has already permanently settled in the post-Gaddafi chaos, and in 2019, Moscow supported the militias of Khalifa Haftar, first in Cyrenaica and then in the Fezzan desert, where the 1200 Wagner mercenaries are deployed, supervising hundreds of Syrian aides loyal to the Assad regime, in addition to working behind the scenes to promote Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi.
Le Monde added that the geographical expansion enabled Russia to penetrate into Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mali, where Wagner mercenaries have been exploring and searching for minerals since last October.
It also indicated that these efforts by Wagner preceded the deployment of trainers and paramilitary forces in mid-December, when they were flown from Latakia to Benghazi and from there to Libya, which is the focus of geopolitics Russian.
