(Reuters) – The head of a Russian private militia accused France of attempting to assassinate the head of a Russian representative office in the Central African Republic, who was seriously injured yesterday after opening a mail bomb.
Dmitry Syty, head of the “Russian House”, was taken to a hospital in the capital Bangui and by late afternoon his condition was serious, but stable, the Russian Embassy said, according to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the once-secretive Russian private military contractor Wagner Group, which has supported Central African Republic’s (CAR) army since 2018 but gained wider attention with its role in Russia’s war in Ukraine, blamed France for the attack.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said the claims were false.
“It’s even a good example of Russian propaganda and the fanciful imagination that sometimes characterises this propaganda”, she told journalists on a trip to Morocco.
France is the former colonial ruler in CAR, a gold- and diamond-rich country of 4.7 million people whose government is fighting several rebel insurgencies. Since 2018 the government has been assisted by hundreds of Russian operatives, including many from Wagner.
“Before losing consciousness, Dmitry Syty managed to say: ‘I saw a note: This is for you from all the French, the Russians will get out of Africa’,” Prigozhin, who styles himself as a strong supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Telegram.
He did not say how he knew what Syty had said.
He said he had asked Russian Foreign Ministry to open the procedure for declaring France a state sponsor of terrorism.
The ministry said the act aimed to “harm the successful development of friendly relations” between Russia and CAR. RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed senior CAR source as saying the country would cooperate with Russia in the investigation.
French President Emmanuel Macron has accused Russia of feeding anti-French propaganda in Africa to serve “predatory” ambitions in Africa, where France has suffered military setbacks and a wider loss of influence over recent years.
Prigozhin called Syty “a patriot of Russia and the Central African Republic”.
