Russia Has Deployed 100,000 Military Personnel To Burkina Faso
On October 18, 2025, a Facebook user @NsemsisiTv claimed that President Vladimir Putin had sent 100,000 Russian troops to support Burkina Faso’s leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, in battle. The post which had a 30 seconds video with still images of Putin, Traoré and Chinese leader, Xi Jinping with moving war tanks in the background was captioned, “Breaking News 🚨🚨🚨 President Putin Has Sent 🙏 100,000 Troops To Support President Ibrahim Traore In Battle.❤️#nsemsisitv #Afrocania #PutinsPuppet #follower #PresidentTrump #virals #everyone.”
When this report was published, this claim had about 2.8 million views and over 34,100 reactions, comments and shares.
VERIFICATION
In January 2024, TRTWorld reported that about 100 Russian military personnel from the so-called Africa Corps had arrived in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital. The troops were part of the newly formed Africa Corps, a Russia’s military initiative designed to replace the Wagner Group following its restructuring after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death in 2023.
There were plans to deploy an additional 200 military personnel to increase the number of personnel involved to about 300. The mission was labelled as protective and advisory, not combat-based but there are no reports to confirm that the additional 200 troops arrived in Burkina Faso.
In August 2024, Le Monde reported that around 100 men out of the 200-300 Russian forces belonging to the Bear Brigade that were deployed in Burkina Faso were redeployed back to Crimea. The deployment of 100,000 Russian troops would attract significant national and international sources; yet there are no reports on such planned or confirmed deployment.
To further ascertain the originality of the video N-VA ran it through Hivemoderation and AI Detector, the result indicated that the video may have been generated by AI.
After a thorough review of the video, an AI-generated watermark was observed at the top left corner of the video. This clearly indicates that the video was created using artificial intelligence tools.
CONCLUSION
The claim that President Vladimir Putin sent 100,000 troops to support Burkina Faso’s leader, Ibrahim Traoré, in battle is FALSE. Verified reports confirm that only about 100 to 300 Russian military personnel belonging to Russia’s Africa Corps were deployed to Burkina Faso. Their mission is focused on training, advisory, and regime protection roles, not direct combat operations.
