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Added on the 21/03/2018 11:22:12 - Copyright : France 24 EN
Emmanuel Macron: "Last week, chemical weapons were used by the regime of Bashar al-Assad"
NATO defence ministers on Thursday discussed ways to bolster forces and deterrence along the military alliance's eastern borders.
Britain's defence ministry said that private Russian military firm Wagner Group has headed to eastern Ukraine, where "they are expected to deploy more than 1,000 mercenaries, including senior leaders of the organisation, to undertake combat operations" following Russian setbacks. Reputed to be close to Putin, the Wagner Group and its mercenaries are suspected of widespread abuses in Mali, Libya and Syria. As Russia's invasion of Ukraine now enters a potentially more volatile chapter, France 24 is joined by Dr. Samuel Ramani, geopolitical analyst and Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Dr. Ramani says he's "not expecting much success" with this latest maneuver from Russia. "Wagner Group forces have traditionally been much more effective" in the "defensive capacity," providing training for Libyan forces or "guardianship of stationary facilities." But Russia's war on Ukraine is a purely offensive military operation and Wagner Group has had only very limited success with offensive operations in countries such as Libya, Mozambique and Central African Republic. And how might the West respond to these latest developments in Ukraine? Dr. Ramani says that the West will simply regard this as an escalation of the war and see this as "a sign that Russia is not really serious about peace. If Russia were serious about peace, they wouldn't be bringing 1000 fighters who are known for egregious human rights abuses ranging from the deployment of land mines to the use of chemical weapons in Libya," he explains. "That's not really the step that you'd be taking if you want to actually end this war."
The arrival of international chemical weapons inspectors at the location of a suspected poison gas attack in the Syrian town of Douma has been delayed after gunfire at the site during a visit by a U.N. security team on Tuesday, sources told Reuters.
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