Niger War, 2025

At the end of the third decade of the 21st century, the African continent once again became the focus of global power struggles. The Sahel region of West Africa, spanning across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Нигер, is an ancient and modern land torn apart by conflicts. It has long been a breeding ground for the convergence of great power interests, the intensification of ethnic conflicts, and the breeding of extremism. An extremist organization with ISIS background, Desert Blade, quietly emerged. They used the public's aversion to foreign invaders and anger towards poverty and social injustice to expand their territory, launched attacks on local civilians and infrastructure, and attempted to establish a "Caliphate" that followed their extreme doctrines in the chaos. Russia, the former superpower, has been continuously seeking to expand its influence on a global scale in recent years. It saw an excellent opportunity to lay out in West Africa and decided to support these countries in opposing terrorism as an important pawn against Western forces, especially NATO expansion. Russia secretly dispatched the Wagner mercenary group, ostensibly to help these countries train their armies, but in reality aimed to strengthen their military presence in the region and secretly support local militia organizations, making them a force to counter Western intervention. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Нигер almost simultaneously erupted in popular uprisings, and the military government quickly rose, vowing to break away from its long-standing dependence on France and the United States and end the shadow of "Neocolonialism". The new regime not only explicitly rejected military aid from Western countries, but also collectively expelled French and American troops, a series of actions that shocked the international community. France and the United States have strongly responded to this, believing that it is a direct threat to Russia's diplomatic strategy in Africa. After urgent consultations, the two g