Moscow and Malabo have concluded an agreement to allow Russian instructors to train members of the armed forces of Equatorial Guinea, the vice president of the West African country Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue announced on Thursday.
The agreement was reached during the meeting between Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and the African vice president.
“Equatorial Guinea and Russia have signed a military training agreement. This agreement will enable Russian instructors to travel to the country to train soldiers from various corps of the national army,” Obiang said in a message on X (formerly Twitter).
In a statement released on the government website, the vice president mentioned that Yevkurov’s visit to Malabo had elevated relations between the two countries to “a higher level,” particularly in multi-sectoral cooperation with a focus on defense and security.
In November 2023, President of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. One of the topics discussed was the potential opening of a Russian embassy in Malabo.
At the end of March, Vsevolod Tkachenko, who heads the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Africa Department, announced that an embassy in Malabo is already operating de facto.
A high-ranking delegation from the Russian Defense Ministry also visited Niger and Mali at the beginning of last week.
According to local news agency aBamako, the parties discussed defense and security cooperation, as well as the situation in the Sahel region, which has been plagued by jihadist violence for decades.