West African leaders will meet Sunday in the Nigerian capital Abuja for an “extraordinary summit” on Niger, scene of the latest military coup to hit the Sahel region, with the possibility of sanctions on the cards.

The country’s elected president Mohamed Bazoum has been held by the military for four days, and General Abdourahamane Tiani, the chief of the powerful presidential guard, has declared himself leader.

Former colonial ruler France and the European Union have suspended security cooperation and financial aid to Niger, and it remains to be seen whether the Economic Community of West African Nations (ECOWAS) will do the same.

“ECOWAS and the international community would do everything to defend democracy and ensure democratic governance continues to take firm root in the region,” said Bola Tinubu, president of Nigeria and ECOWAS chairman, in a statement Friday.

The body has the power to impose sanctions on Niger, which is one of its 15 members.

Ahead of Sunday’s gathering, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Tinubu to convey his “deep concern” over the situation in Niger, and “underscored his support for President Tinubu’s continued efforts to restore constitutional order” there.

Niger’s neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso have both undergone two military coups since 2020, fuelled by anger at a failure to quash long-running insurgencies by jihadists linked to the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.

Tiani said the putsch was a response to “the degradation of the security situation” linked to jihadist bloodshed as well as corruption and economic woes.

– Turbulent political history –

After a wave of condemnation for the coup, punitive measures have already begun.

France — which has 1,500 soldiers in Niger — said Saturday it was suspending development aid and budgetary support to the west African nation, one of the world’s poorest countries.

It called for “an immediate return to constitutional order” and Bazoum’s reinstatement.

European Union diplomatic chief Josep Borrell meanwhile said the bloc would not recognise the putschists, and announced the indefinite suspension of security cooperation with Niger with immediate effect as well as budgetary aid.

Borrell said the EU was ready to support future decisions taken by ECOWAS, “including the adoption of sanctions”, echoing a statement by France’s foreign minister.

The African Union has given the military two weeks to restore “constitutional authority”.

It condemned the coup in “the strongest terms possible” and expressed deep concern over the “alarming resurgence” of military overthrows in Africa.

The United States — which has about 1,000 troops in Niger — has offered Bazoum Washington’s steadfast support and warned those detaining him that they were “threatening years of successful cooperation and hundreds of millions of dollars of assistance”.

Landlocked Niger often ranks last in the UN’s Human Development Index, despite vast deposits of uranium. It has had a turbulent political history since gaining independence in 1960, with four coups as well as numerous other attempts — including two previously against Bazoum.

Three Ukrainian drones were downed over Moscow early Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said, in an attack that damaged two office towers and briefly shut an international airport.

While one of the drones was shot down on the city’s outskirts, two others were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and smashed into an office complex. No one was injured.

Moscow and its environs, lying about 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border, had rarely been targeted during the conflict in Ukraine until several drone attacks this year.

The attack reported Sunday is the latest in a series of recent drone assaults — including on the Kremlin and Russian towns near the border with Ukraine — that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.

The defence ministry called it an “attempted terrorist attack”.

“On the morning of July 30, the Kyiv regime’s attempted terrorist attack with unmanned aerial vehicles on objects in the city of Moscow was thwarted,” it said on Telegram.

“One Ukrainian UAV was destroyed in the air by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo district of Moscow region.

“Two more drones were suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of Moscow-City’s non-residential building complex.”

Moscow-City is a commercial development in the west of the capital.

Its mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram that the “facades of two city office towers were slightly damaged”.

He added that there were “no victims or injured”.

Several windows had been blown out on the corner of the buildings, AFP photos showed, with mangled steel beams visible and documents strewn on the ground below.

Police officers had cordoned off the area.

 Airport briefly closed

The TASS state news agency reported that the capital’s Vnukovo airport was “closed for departures and arrivals, flights are redirected to other airports”.

Within less than an hour, operations appeared to have returned to normal.

Earlier this month, a volley of drone attacks briefly disrupted air traffic at the same airport, to the city’s southwest.

The attacks on Moscow come several weeks into a Ukrainian counter-offensive to claw back territory captured by Russia since large-scale hostilities erupted in February 2022.

Russia’s foreign ministry has said such attacks “would not be possible without the help provided to the Kyiv regime by the US and its NATO allies”.

On Friday Russia said it had intercepted two missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least 16 people wounded by debris falling on the city of Taganrog.

Shortly after, it said it downed a second S-200 missile near the city of Azov, with debris falling in an unpopulated area.

On the other side of the border, a Russian strike killed two people in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, authorities there said.

And at least one civilian was killed in a missile attack on the northeastern city of Sumy, according to Ukrainian national police, who added that there were five injured.

According to public broadcaster Suspilne, the building was destroyed in an explosion at about 8:00 pm (1700 GMT).

In early July, a Russian drone attack hit an apartment building in the same city, killing three and wounding 21.