The President of Benin, Patrice Talon, granted on Sunday, a special interview to the French channel LCI, in which he expressed himself on the recourse of some African states to the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which was established in the Central African Republic in 2014 at the invitation of President Faustin Archange Touadéra to suppress a rebellion.
On this subject, he said that if the objective behind this recourse is purely security, “it is not condemnable in principle”.
He added that “this recourse is not new”. The most blatant example is Afghanistan with the Americans. And so for him, the fact of calling upon a private military contractor cannot be condemned.
However, the president said that if Wagner serves a regime for exactions and does not fulfill a pure security mission, it must be condemned.
The President of Benin also expressed his views on the war between Russia and Ukraine, saying that although Russia is a friend of Benin, this does not prevent the condemnation of the Russian war in Ukraine, because for him, trivializing this fact would be a way of promoting the use of force to resolve international conflicts.