British newspaper: Russia is exploiting Haftar to provide billions of dollars for its war machines

The British newspaper “Sunday Express” confirmed that Russia is exploiting the American Khalifa Haftar in order to strengthen its influence in Africa, which has reached dangerous levels, to provide billions of foreign currencies that it needs to support its current war machines from the looted resources in those countries.

The newspaper explained that increasing Russian influence gives Moscow the ability to exert pressure on NATO’s southern flank.

The newspaper reported that there are currently about two thousand Russian soldiers and fighters affiliated with Wagner in Libya, in addition to 15 Russian pilots, 35 technical experts, 80 administrative employees, and about 1,500 regular Russian soldiers.

It added, “Libya will be a fundamental pillar for Russian operations elsewhere in Africa, from which Moscow will benefit by obtaining mineral resources such as gold, diamonds, uranium, cobalt, nickel, and chromium.”

The newspaper quoted regional expert Alia Al-Ibrahimi as saying: “In Libya, they buy Russian fuel, which the European Union has imposed sanctions on, and re-export it. There is 17 billion pounds sterling that Libya spent on meeting local fuel demands, but most of it goes to smuggling operations to Russia, and it shows the extent of the organization and methodology.” Russian influence.”

She added, “Washington has spent the past two years trying to embrace Haftar and convince him to stand by him. It is clear that this strategy has failed and the West is no longer able to ignore what is happening.”

As for political expert Jalal Harchaoui, he told the newspaper that Russia’s goal is to gain influence on the African continent to provide large-scale financial returns, but the crisis is shameful because Washington is only thinking about defeating Russia in Ukraine instead of defeating it in Libya, and this is tragically shameful.