Russia gains ground among young in troubled Burkina

Alassane, a tailor in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, said he worked non-stop last weekend.

"All I did the whole time was sew Russian flags," he said in his workshop above the city's main market. 

"There was a rush of big orders. But now work is back to normal."

The sight of Russian tricolours brandished by demonstrators in Ouagadougou last weekend was an eye-catching moment in the latest turbulence to strike the troubled Sahel state.

Pro-Russian protestors took to the streets at the climax of the country's second military coup in less than nine months.

The nation's new leader is 34-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traore. 

Heading a group of disgruntled junior officers, he forced out junta leader Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had toppled the country's elected president just in January.

Both Traore and Damiba before him defended their respective takeover on the grounds that they were the right people to act against a bloody jihadist insurgency.

But some say the denouement of their standoff -- which saw both anti-French as well as pro-Russian demonstrations -- may point to a new thread.

Is Burkina Faso the latest French ally in Africa to fall under the Kremlin's influence?

 Domino theory 
In Central African Republic, and then in Burkina Faso's neighbour Mali, Russia has struck close ties that have translated into Russian military support and waning French clout.

Backing for the junta in Mali, for instance, has included warplanes, helicopters and operatives described by the military as trainers but by western countries as Wagner mercenaries.

As its relations with Mali soured and Russia's stock rose, France this year withdrew its last troops in an anti-jihadist force that had been deployed since 2013.

In the Sahel and elsewhere in French-speaking West Africa, France has been on the back foot in an information war.

It has been lashed on social media for its colonial past, which ended in the early 1960s, and for meddling in the post-independence era.

But observers caution against jumping to the conclusion that Burkina Faso is the next French ally in Africa to tumble into the Russian sphere.

"We'll have to see what happens in the next few months to get the complete picture," a Sahel diplomat said, and other sources, including local Burkinabe, agreed.

 Historic ties 
Burkina's ties with Russia "have always existed, although they have been less visible in the past," said Henri Koubizara, who headed the parliament's friendship group between the two countries between 2015 and 2020.

Like Mali, political relations and educational exchanges with Moscow date back to the former Soviet Union and the early post-colonial days.

The intensity started to fall back in the mid-1980s when the Soviet reform period of perestroika set in, and hit a wall with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, he said.

Today, though, "Russia again feels comfortable" in Africa, appreciated by a new generation, Koubizara said.

Among young pro-Russian figures who have emerged in the past decade is Lassane Sawadogo, founder of a group called "France Must Leave."

Meeting in a cafe with an AFP reporter, he reeled off a list of complaints against Burkina Faso's former colonial master.

They include the CFA franc, created by France as a single currency to facilitate exchanges among its former colonies but attacked by campaign groups as monetary dictatorship, and the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS.

Then there are the accusations that France has interfered to secure cosy contracts for its firms and grab strategic minerals.

Koubiza said that Burkina-watchers should not obsess over Moscow.

But like those who took to the streets in Ouagadougou, he also argued that Burkina's beleaguered armed forces urgently needed Russian military support.

"When you're in a river and you are drowning, and you see a stick... you grab hold of it, no?" he said.