Oct 24th 2019JOHANNESBURG AND SOCHIIN OCTOBER 2017 Faustin Archange Touadéra was in a difficult spot. The president of the Central African Republic (CAR), one of the world’s poorest and most fragile countries, was struggling to quell a dozen or so militias that threatened his regime. A year earlier France had withdrawn troops from its former colony. An arms embargo meant that the government of CAR could not equip its own soldiers. Short of options, Mr Touadéra did what desperate African leaders sometimes do: he turned to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.The impact was swift. Within weeks a mining and a security company linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, Mr Putin’s crony, were reportedly registered in Bangui, the capital. That December Russia successfully lobbied for the arms embargo to be lifted. Soon after, it dispatched weapons and mercenaries to shore up Mr Touadéra’s regime, as well as a former GRU (military intelligence) operative to act as the president’s security adviser. A few months later Lobaye Invest, the mining company, won concessions to look for gold and diamonds. When three Russian journalists tried to investigate their country’s shady operations in CAR they turned up dead in July 2018.Choose us for news analysis that respects your time and intelligenceSubscribe to The EconomistWe filter out the noise of the daily news cycle and analyse the trends that matterWe give you rigorous, deeply researched and fact-checked journalism. That’s why Americans named us their most trusted news source in 2017Available wherever you are—in print, digital and, uniquely, in audio, fully narrated by professional broadcastersThis website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard‘s standards of credibility and transparency.ORContinue reading this articleRegister with an email address