The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the French authorities of escalating an «anti-Russian» campaign in Africa and trying to «discredit the friendly assistance» Moscow provides to its partners on the continent.
«We believe that the French authorities (…) need to think more often about the consequences of their sometimes irresponsible activities, words and actions,» Russian diplomatic portfolio spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a press conference.
Diplomatic relations between Paris and Moscow are not at their best due to the war in Ukraine, although the response of the Gallic authorities to a recent attack with an explosive package in the vicinity of the Russian Embassy in the Central African Republic (CAR) has not helped either.
That incident left Dmitri Siti, director of the Casa Rusa cultural center, seriously injured and prompted the founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeni Prigozhin, to point directly to France as responsible for the explosion, as the parcel bomb was allegedly accompanied by a letter speaking «in the name of all French people».
From Paris, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, called Prigozhin’s statements «false» and took the opportunity to denounce the «propaganda» spread by the Kremlin and the operations carried out on the African continent through the Wagner Group.
In this context, Zakharova urged the French authorities to express their words of «sympathy, regret and condemnation» for the attack in the Central African Republic in view of the fact that «the issue of Russia in Africa has been of great interest» to France in recent days.
The Russian Foreign Ministry already summoned on Wednesday the French ambassador in Moscow, Pierre Lévy, in protest against Minister Colonna’s statements regarding the attack in Central African Republic.
INVESTIGATION OF ATTACK IN CAR Zakharova also acknowledged that Moscow is waiting for the Central African Republic authorities to launch an investigation into the circumstances of the «crime» and hopes that the perpetrators of the attack will be punished.
«We believe that the Central African authorities have the right to ask for assistance in the investigation of this terrorist attack from the relevant services of other states that can help clarify the situation,» she added.
«In Central African Republic, often thanks to the efforts of Western countries, and primarily France, a negative, sometimes hysterical and toxic information atmosphere is created around Russian representatives and specialists who carry out their activities in the country only at the invitation of the official authorities of Central African Republic,» he stressed.
The African country has been plunged into a serious crisis following the elimination of the candidacy for the 2020 presidential elections of former President François Bozizé, who returned to the country at the end of 2019 to run again for the presidency, a post he left in 2014 in the face of the uprising of the predominantly Muslim Séléka rebels.
The elimination of Bozizé’s candidacy led to the creation of the armed alliance Coalition Patriots for Change (CPC) -currently led by the former president-, which triggered an armed conflict in which the CAR Army was also supported by Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
