Moscow. January 12. INTERFAX - Moscow does not know how many Russian citizens, employees of the Wagner PMCs, are currently in Mali, a high-ranking source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told Interfax.
"This is a private company, they have their own business. We didn't send them anywhere, they negotiated with customers. There are official authorities there who invite our companies and other companies. And we don't know at all how many employees there are - one, two, three hundred, three thousand," the agency interlocutor said on Wednesday.
As the high-ranking diplomat stressed, "the official authorities of the Russian Federation have nothing to do with the activities of our private companies." "This is capitalism. Everyone earns as much as they can," he added.
The interlocutor of the agency negatively answered the question of whether, in principle, Russian citizens who are in Mali are being accounted for. "It used to be under Soviet rule that citizens had to get up for consular registration, but now there is no such requirement, everything is on a voluntary basis," he said.
On the eve of a high-ranking representative of the French Defense Ministry, on condition of anonymity, told reporters that about 300-400 mercenaries from Russia are operating in the central part of Mali.
On the same day, a meeting of the UN Security Council was held, during which the United States, Great Britain and France expressed concern about the Wagner Group operating in Mali, a Russian private military company.
The aggravation of the situation around Mali began after the coup in this country in 2020, after which the countries of West Africa closed their borders with Mali, severed diplomatic relations, imposed economic sanctions, which were supported by the United States and France.
