After Coup in Burkina Faso, Protesters Turn to Russia for Help

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.

“No to France,” one read.

The sudden clamor for Moscow’s help was a further sign of how Islamist violence across the Sahel, a vast region south of the Sahara, is upending old alliances and eroding pro-Western, if often weak, democratic political orders.

Many people at the protest said they were inspired by Russia’s intervention in the Central African Republic, where Russians guard the president, Russian companies mine for diamonds, and Russian mercenaries fought off an Islamist offensive last year — as well as a more recent Russian foray into Mali, the country to the north of Burkina Faso.

“The Russians got good results in other African countries,” Mr. Yoda said. “We hope they can do the same here.”

There are no Russian troops known to be in Burkina Faso, and it is unclear if the country’s new military ruler, Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, wants them to come. On Tuesday, The Daily Beast reported that Lieutenant Colonel Damiba had implored President Kaboré to hire the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked mercenary group earlier this month.

Several U.S. officials privately questioned this account, but said it was entirely plausible that the new military government could seek Russian assistance.

It wasn’t clear how Russian flags ended up at a pro-military demonstration in central Ouagadougou on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the coup. The Russian Embassy in Burkina Faso could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. But the rally was one indication of an effort to pave the way for Russian intervention in yet another African nation.

“The difficulties Europe and in particular France have faced in reining in jihadist groups in the Sahel has provided an opportunity for Russia to expand its security cooperation, particularly in Mali,” said Andrew Lebovich, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a research body.

Russian intervention in Africa often focuses on resource-rich countries in dire need of…