While Chadians were invited to the polls this Monday, May 6, to elect their president, N’Djamena was visited by a controversial figure. Under US and European sanctions, Maksim Shugaley is the director of the Foundation for the Protection of National Values, an organization linked to the Wagner Group whose influential operations continue despite the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Asked about the reasons for his visit, he answered RFI’s questions.
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2 min
With our correspondent from N’Djamena, Carol Valade
A cap with the image of Mahamat Idris Debi on his head, a shirt with the Russian and Chadian flags in his hands, Maksim Shugaley poses all smiles for a photo published on his Telegram channel: ” Voting (…) is over. The winner is obvious ” he said, before accusing the United States of trying to interfere electoral process.
The photo, spotted by French researcher Colin Gérard, was taken on the premises of the New Generation Support Office, which is campaigning for the presidential candidate, but whose officials did not respond to our requests.
” This is my second time coming to Chad » Šugalej responds to the RFI. A visit that lasted five days. ” Authorities [du pays] were kind enough to give me the opportunity to satisfy my scientific interest “, he said, for ” a study of thought » whose results will be published. ” I met representatives of the government and the opposition “, he specifies. Chad’s government did not want to react, and Prime Minister Succès Masra said he did not know him.
A few days ago, another Telegram channel announced the arrival of “ Russian civilian specialists » in Chad. “ The people of Chad do not benefit from relations with France », Shugaley continues before encouraging the development of Chadian-Russian relations. And to announce that he plans to return very soon ” for the inauguration of the new president “.
Maksim Shugaley has worked in several countries where Wagner’s Russian paramilitary unit operates, notably in the Central African Republic, Libya where he was jailed for a year and a half for attempting to interfere in elections, and even in Mali.
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