The founder of the Russian private military company Wagner accused France on Friday of being behind an assassination attempt on a Russian official who was wounded by a parcel bomb in the Central African Republic.
"Before losing consciousness, Dmitry Syty managed to say: 'I saw a note: This is for you from all the French, the Russians will get out of Africa'," Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a statement posted on Telegram.
"I have already applied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to initiate the procedure for declaring France a state sponsor of terrorism, as well as a thorough investigation of the terrorist methods of France and its Western allies - the United States and others," Prigozhin said.
(Reporting by Reuters)
