Timbuktu Institute - July 2025

Download the full report

The deployment of Africa Corps marks a strategic shift in Russia's military and geopolitical influence in Africa, particularly in the Sahel, as the successor to the Wagner Group. Following Wagner's withdrawal from Mali on 6 June 2025, Africa Corps, a paramilitary entity directly controlled by the state under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Defence and linked to the GRU (the Russian military intelligence agency), formalised and expanded Moscow's presence on the continent. This transition reflects the Kremlin's desire to institutionalise its operations, abandoning the denial of the past maintained by Wagner's vague and semi-independent status in favour of an approach and strategy directly controlled by the state. This repositioning consolidates Russian influence in the Sahel, now part of broader strategic objectives in a context of global geopolitical tensions and prolonged conflict with Ukraine.

Africa Corps thus provides an operational framework enabling its effective integration into the security structures of Sahelian states, particularly in Mali, where it operates alongside national forces, co-manages command posts and provides training in weapons handling, intelligence and operational discipline. With renovated Russian bases near Bamako and advanced military equipment such as BTR-82A armoured vehicles, Msta-B howitzers and Su-24M bombers, Africa Corps is strengthening its operational footprint. The Russian structure also provides protection for military leaders in power and key infrastructure, consolidating political support for military regimes without conditions related to democracy, let alone human rights.

With regard to the recruitment of Africa Corps personnel and the continuity of its presence and operations, approximately 70 to 80% of the personnel are former Wagner fighters. This approach ensures continuity in expertise and tactics. As a result, recruitment efforts have intensified since February 2025, targeting economically disadvantaged or peripheral regions of Russia, including certain areas of Tatarstan, with attractive bonuses (up to 2.5 million roubles / 18 million CFA francs). These efforts respond to Russia's recruitment challenges in the midst of its fourth year of war in Ukraine, while strengthening the Africa Corps' presence in the Sahel.

There is indeed a genuine strategy motivated by a clear focus on the entire Sahel region. This Russian strategy in the Sahel via Africa Corps is based on four pillars: protecting military regimes, securing access to natural resources (such as the gold refinery near Bamako), establishing long-term partnerships in infrastructure and energy, and undermining Western influence, particularly that of France, which has historically been dominant. The agreements signed in June 2025 between Russia and Mali on nuclear cooperation and infrastructure illustrate this approach. By positioning itself as a champion in promoting and supporting ‘regional sovereignty,’ Russia also aims to counter Western and Ukrainian diplomatic efforts, particularly the expansion of Ukraine's presence through new embassies and humanitarian aid.

However, despite the change in form, the intervention of the Africa Corps continues to pose a real risk to human rights (massacres, abuses against certain communities, etc.) and is fully in line with the same logic of information warfare.

In reality, Africa Corps inherits Wagner's legacy of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings and acts of torture, such as during the Moura massacre in 2022. These abuses, often committed with impunity, fuel discontent among certain communities and jihadist recruitment that exploits various grievances. At the same time, Russian influence operations, orchestrated by platforms such as African Initiative, amplify anti-Western narratives and denigrate democracy through local media, cultural events and disinformation campaigns. These efforts portray Russia as a stabilising force while accusing Western powers of developing strategies to destabilise the region.

The geopolitical implications of such a strategy of transformation and continuity of Russian influence through Africa Corps are significant. Africa Corps strengthens Russia's ability to project its power in a region undergoing geopolitical reconfiguration. By supporting regimes that have come to power through coups and countering Western influence, Russia's strategy will inevitably lead, if only through a logic of retaliation, to a future intensification of indirect confrontations involving actors such as NATO and Ukraine in the Sahel or their allies. Russia's presence, which is part of a visible and formalised long-term strategy through Africa Corps, combined with sophisticated information warfare, positions Moscow as a key player in the changing balance of power, challenging any notion of Western ‘domination’ while securing lasting economic and diplomatic leverage in Africa.