After Coup in Burkina Faso, Protesters Turn to Russia for Help
Fed up with the failure of their government, and France, to stop the violence caused by militants, some citizens now call for Russia to intervene.
By Declan Walsh
Jan. 25, 2022, 6:10 p.m. ET
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — The morning after the coup in Burkina Faso, a crowd of revelers celebrating the military takeover in the dusty main plaza of the capital had two messages for the outside world: No to France, and yes to Russia.

“We want a partnership with Russia,” said Bertrand Yoda, a civil engineer who shouted to make himself heard amid hundreds of horn-honking, cheering people gathered in a raucous show of appreciation for the new military junta. “Long live Russia!”

Mutinying soldiers seized power in this poor West African nation on Monday, riding a wave of boiling frustration at the government’s failure to stem surging Islamist violence that since 2016 has displaced 1.4 million people, killed 2,000 and destabilized perhaps two-thirds of a once-peaceful country.

But now that the democratically elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, has been sidelined — the military says he is being detained — coup supporters have turned to remaking Burkina’s Faso’s foreign alliances. Their preferences were broadcast in the Russian flags that fluttered in the capital, Ouagadougou, on Tuesday, alongside blunt, hand-painted signs aimed directly at Burkina Faso’s former colonial ruler.