On December 23, a group of Western countries led by former colonial power France, which in 2013 intervened militarily to help push back advancing armed groups that threatened to seize the whole of Mali, sharply criticised what they said was the deployment of Russian mercenaries working for the controversial Wagner Group. So the French troops intervening in Mali was fine, but Russian troops going into Mali at the invitation of the Mali government to fight the same terrorists are “mercenaries"?
The French have been colonialists in Africa for a very long time. The Russians have not.
