What You Need to Know
Togo is strategically balancing its diplomatic relations with both Russia and France amid regional tensions. Following a failed coup in Benin, Togo’s leadership is leveraging partnerships while maintaining cautious ties with ECOWAS. The Togolese government emphasizes diversification in international relations, reflecting broader regional trends and domestic political strategies.
Africa. In West Africa, some countries are strengthening old ties with France while others are building new relationships with Russia. Caught between these trends, Togo is trying to draw benefits from both sides through a strategy of careful diplomatic balance and diversified partnerships.
Attention turned to Lomé after a failed military coup attempt in Benin on December 7. The rebel leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Pascal Tigri, reportedly slipped away quietly, apparently crossing the border into neighboring Togo. From that temporary refuge, he then seems to have reached a safer haven elsewhere—possibly Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso or Niamey in Niger.
The secrecy surrounding Togo’s alleged role fits a broader pattern. Under Faure Gnassingbé, the country has repeatedly sought maximum diplomatic leverage by defying expectations and maintaining relationships with a wide range of often competing international partners.
Lomé is too cautious to be caught openly backing a challenge to Benin’s President Patrice Talon, with whom relations are, at best, guarded. It also avoids confirming Benin’s belief that it ensured Tigri’s safe passage. The sensitivity is heightened because both states are members of ECOWAS, which is currently under strain.
At the same time, Gnassingbé does not hide his friendly ties with Burkina Faso and with the Sahel’s military governments allied with Niger and Mali—three countries that left ECOWAS in January last year. He also makes a point of reminding France, Togo’s traditional main international partner, that other options exist.
On October 30, Emmanuel Macron hosted Gnassingbé at the Élysée Palace to strengthen bilateral relations. Yet less than three weeks later, the Togolese leader was in Moscow for a notably warm meeting with Vladimir Putin. They formally endorsed a defense partnership allowing Russian ships to use the port of Lomé—one of West Africa’s best-equipped deep-water ports and a key supply gateway for landlocked Sahel states that, after coups between 2020 and 2023, have moved closer to the Kremlin’s orbit.
While the Paris visit was relatively low-profile, the Moscow trip drew heavy publicity. The bilateral military deal includes intelligence sharing and joint exercises, though Lomé is said to have no plans to host a base for “Africa Corps,” described as a Kremlin-controlled successor to the now-dissolved Wagner group. The package also featured economic cooperation projects and the announcement that both countries would reopen their embassies, closed since the 1990s.
This shift inevitably unsettled France, which once viewed Togo as one of its most reliable allies. After Tigri launched the coup attempt in Benin, Macron quickly signaled to other ECOWAS governments that France could provide specialized emergency military support to help protect constitutional order.
Togolese officials insist that closer ties with Russia are not an intentional break with the West. Instead, they frame the move as natural diversification. That argument aligns with broader regional changes: three years ago Togo and Gabon complemented longstanding Francophonie participation by joining the Commonwealth, while last year English-speaking Ghana—long a Commonwealth pillar—joined the Francophonie.
Many West African governments are increasingly frustrated with outside narratives that treat these ties as a Cold War-style alignment choice or a narrow Anglophone–Francophone rivalry rooted in former colonial powers. They argue for broad, non-exclusive partnerships with many international actors.
Regionally, Togo’s prime minister has pushed this diversified approach strongly. Lomé is a major freight and travel hub: its port can receive the largest ocean-going container ships, with feeder vessels distributing cargo to smaller or shallower ports. Flights from Lomé connect across West and Central Africa, and the city hosts banks and other regional financial institutions. These links have helped diversify the economy, even though rural areas remain relatively poor.
Still, Togo needs to remain central to ECOWAS and sits on the crucial Lagos–Abidjan transport corridor, a major development priority for the bloc. Yet Gnassingbé has concluded that he must also maintain strong ties with the breakaway Sahel military regimes now grouped in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)—a group that Togo’s foreign minister, Robert Dussey, has even floated the idea of joining.
This is not only about economic or diplomatic diversification; it also connects to Gnassingbé’s domestic political strategy. A constitutional change announced in 2024 and implemented this year transformed the presidency—previously subject to term limits—into a largely ceremonial post, transferring executive power to the prime minister, now renamed “president of the council” using Spanish and Italian-style terminology. That role carries no term limit.
This enabled Gnassingbé to hand the presidency to a discreet loyalist while taking the new, stronger prime-ministerial role himself, with little prospect of a power limit given his party UNIR’s long-standing dominance in successive legislative elections. The move proved highly controversial, but protests were quickly suppressed.
Individuals even loosely linked to demonstrations have reportedly been detained. High-profile critics such as the rapper Aamron (real name Narcisse Essiwé Tchalla) and former defense minister Marguerite Gnakadè have faced threats of prosecution. Journalists say they have been intimidated. Government figures accused protesters of violence, warned of “fake news” on social media, claimed human rights arguments were being used to destabilize the country, and alleged parts of civil society fabricated accusations against security forces. One minister framed incitement to unprovoked violence as “terrorism.”
In September, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the unconditional release of political prisoners, including Irish-Togolese citizen Abdoul Aziz Goma, detained since 2018. Togo’s government responded by summoning the EU ambassador and asserting that the judiciary operates independently.
Through a diversified international strategy, Gnassingbé signals to Western critics that he has choices and does not need to yield to Europe—or anyone else. Yet Togo has a history of sudden protest flare-ups. Despite confident rhetoric, the new “president of the council” may have concluded that a gesture of leniency could help calm resentment still simmering beneath the surface.
In a state-of-the-nation address earlier this month, he said he would instruct the justice minister to review possible prisoner releases. This slight step back from earlier repression suggests that even a highly skilled international balancing act cannot fully neutralize underlying domestic political discontent.
Togo’s diplomatic landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, particularly as West African nations reassess their international partnerships. The shift towards Russia comes amid growing frustrations with traditional Western alliances, as countries seek to diversify their economic and political ties. This trend reflects a broader regional movement towards non-exclusive partnerships that transcend colonial legacies.
