300 Russian military instructors have been sent to the Central African Republic, RIA Novosti reports, citing a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry. The Russians will train soldiers of the CAR national army.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that the purpose of the mission is to “assist" in strengthening the defense capability of the Central African Republic (CAR). The ministry added that the advisers were requested by the leadership of the republic.

"The relevant notice has been submitted by the Russian side to the UN Security Council Committee 2127 on sanctions against CAR," the Foreign Ministry stressed.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said that the Russian military is not involved in combat operations in the CAR. Bogdanov noted that the instructors are "neither an army nor special force."

Earlier, Russia categorically rejected reports that Moscow had sent the military to the CAR. "Besides the five employees of the Russian Ministry of Defense's mission to the Car Department in Bangui, there are no other Russian servicemen. But there are instructors who train the CAR army at the request of the country’s government. They are rotated periodically. And this is well known both to the UN Security Council and to the entire world community," said Russian Ambassador to the CAR Vladimir Titorenko.

In July 2017, three journalists were killed in CAR when they filmed a story about the Russian private military company the Wagner Group.

In 2017, the war correspondent of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" Alexander Kots published a video on his Telegram channel Kotsnews, in which fighters of a Russian private military company train soldiers of the Sudanese army.

  Central African Republic, Russia

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