Unlike the Central African Republic – where President Faustin-Archange Touadéra has re-engaged with France while maintaining security ties with Russia – Niger shows no sign of a slowdown in its gradual divorce from Ecowas and the west (AC Vol 64 No 22 Touadéra stirs the geopolitical cauldron & Vol 65 No 3 Juntas in shock split from Ecowas)...

Russian mercenaries no longer openly roam the streets of Bangui by day as in the Wagner Group's heyday but they still pluck President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's opponents from the streets by night...

The short arm of the law retreats further Accountability and justice may have been a shaky concept in Central African Republic before now but the corruption of the judicial system has worsened – Russian operatives and cronies of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra are untouchable unlike the opposition and the general public...

One of Russia's closest African security clients the Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra appears to be decreasing reliance on the Kremlin by refreshing diplomatic relations with France and accepting a United States offer of military training...

In CAR a Wagner front company has been awarded exclusive rights to the Ndassima mine the country's largest gold mine in return for propping up President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's government...

The Wagner documents claim that he was paid $500 for a video post on a Facebook page with 234 000 subscribers in which he claimed that Central African Republic (CAR) President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's troops were enjoying massive success against rebels supported by Chad while French international media were covering it up...

But instead of assessing the lack of progress and finding new ways towards peace the meeting did little but rubber-stamp the freedom of action that President Faustin-Archange Touadéra now enjoys chiefly by strategic changes of view in Paris and Washington...

But we hear he has not decided whether President Faustin-Archange Touadéra might be his target instead...

CAR's President Faustin-Archange Touadéra and the Malian junta boss Colonel Assimi Goïta were embarrassed when last September Prigozhin acknowledged in a video what they had not yet admitted: that he was leading Wagner and intervening in many African countries...

President Emmanuel Macron is leading an international effort including Rwanda and the UN – with growing United States support – to lift the pressure on President Faustin-Archange Touadéra not to seek a third term of office...

Regional reasons to be soft on Touadéra Circumstances in the immediate central African region also bear upon the new conciliatory – submissive say some – approach of the international community towards diminishing civic freedoms in Central African Republic and President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's bid to change the constitution and obtain a third presidential term...

President Faustin-Archange Touadéra who was previously thought to be bowing to French and western pressure to sever or curtail relations with the Wagner Group of mercenaries appears now to be leaning back towards the Kremlin (AC Vol 64 No 7 Seeking a way out of Kremlin's embrace)...