Niger is one of several West African countries that have recently undergone military coups d'etat. The elected governments were seen as puppets of the French and people there have simply gotten beyond frustrated with what they called neocolonial rule. These are typically former French colonies, French speaking, use currencies called the franc, which are tied to the French banking system, so it's a monetary control apparatus, a bit like how the dollar works post-Bretton-Woods.

Anywho, Niger's military revolts and seizes power, and they want the perceived colonial empires out, including the Americans. We have bases all over Africa as part of what DOD calls AFRICOM which are there primarily for anti-terrorism missions and humanitarian missions. None of these bases are terribly big or imposing, but symbolically, these nations want all aspects of control of their countries to be in the hands of Africans.

So, both the French and Americans have been asked to haul their soldiers tf out of the country, and they weren't polite about asking. Naturally, these are valuable assets that we didn't want to give up, and even if we did, we can't just pull up stakes and be gone tomorrow. Biden did that in Afghanistan. It was a frigging disaster. So, both countries have drug their feet complying.

Russia's in a much more welcome place diplomatically, and Russian army as well as Wagner mercenaries have been invited into a lot of these countries to provide training, securities, to buy weapons, etc. So, in this particular case, the Americans were basically surrounded and locked into their base, and Russian troops ended up stationed in the same base. They were forced together by the Nigerian (is that the right adjective for Niger and not Nigeria? :shrug:) gov't to try and get the Americans to leave.

This was the result. No one really wants to fight but a handful of election-stealing globalist nutjobs at the tippy-top.