'Down with , long live ': That was the message scrawled on banners by protesters waving the Russian flag in Niger after a coup toppled the government last week.For Western forces in the country - including the French and Americans - it was a moment of deja vu because, just a year earlier, almost the exact same scene played out around them in neighbouring Mali.In fact, four countries in the Sahel region - a strip of land just below the Sahara desert - have now kicked out their governments and Western-backed security forces in favour of military juntas that are either openly allied to or being wooed by Russia.
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