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France 24
France 24
World
The FRANCE 24 Observers

How Togo has become a new entry point for weapons sent by Russia to Mali

The photo at left, posted on July 23, 2026, shows a convoy of military vehicles driving through the town of Sikasso in Mali. The image at right is a satellite image of the Mikhail Britnev taken on July 12, 2026.
The photo at left, posted on July 23, 2026, shows a convoy of military vehicles driving through the town of Sikasso in Mali. The image at right is a satellite image of the Mikhail Britnev taken on July 12, 2026. © Facebook, Airbus DS July 2026

A Russian ship under US sanctions, the Mikhail Britnev, dropped off its cargo of military vehicles at the Port of Lomé in Togo on July 9. It’s the first time that Togo has been a stop for a Russian shipment of weapons to Mali, carried out as part of Moscow’s support for the Malian government.

On July 1, an open-source investigations account posted a satellite image taken on June 16 of the port of the Baltiysk Naval Base, located in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between Poland and Lithuania. The image shows a Russian cargo ship, the Mikhail Britnev, being loaded with “armoured fighting vehicles and personnel carriers”.

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