Recalibration or Retreat? Russia's shifting Africa strategy

After a whirlwind two-year expansion into the Sahel, 2024 saw a number of setbacks for Russian military operations.

The Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group’s routing in Tinzaouaten laid bare issues of command and control after a half-handover of operations from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s PMC to the Ministry of Defense (MoD). The fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December then called into question the future of Russia’s eastern Mediterranean port in Tartus and its critical airbase at Khmeimim, all against a backdrop of a grinding third year of war in Ukraine.

These developments have led some analysts to believe Russia’s influence and ability to project power in the Sahel is waning, or that the Kremlin no longer considers the Sahel and other friendly states in Africa a priority. And indeed, there are members of Russia’s military, political, and expert communities pushing to scale back Moscow’s presence on the continent, or to use Africa as a bargaining chip in any potential negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Based on conversations with Russian officers, experts, and members of the PMC community, a retreat from the Sahel, and Africa more generally, still appears unlikely. Rumor and speculation on future strategies are rife, but it is becoming clear that, after several years of expansion, Russian operations in Africa are recalibrating to better match capacity.

Claiming a leadership position within the Global South remains an important priority to the Kremlin, of which Africa constitutes an important, albeit discordant political bloc. The Sahel and Africa more broadly also offer a platform for strengthening Russia’s cooperation with China and Turkey.

And yet, there is still no official Russian state strategy vis-à-vis Africa, no document drawn up, agreed upon, approved, and accepted for implementation. Instead, Russian activity in Africa has tended to occur in an unsystematic fashion, through structures like Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group. These structures had freedom to make proactive decisions on the ground in accordance with emerging opportunities.

The success of Wagner’s assault detachments in a counteroffensive against armed groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2021 turbocharged Prigozhin’s security export in Africa, and his PMC began marketing itself as a military solution to complex conflicts. In CAR, Prigozhin’s operation was largely a private initiative. Once Wagner spread through Mali in early 2022, however, the lack of an interdisciplinary analytical center, capable of realistically assessing the Sahel’s compounding crises, quickly became clear.

From the beginning of the Malian campaign, the Russian expert community and a number of military officers criticized both the direct participation of Russian armed contingents in an asymmetric conflict and, in general, solving the conflict exclusively by force.

The constant participation of Wagner units in the most difficult and bloody areas of the campaign, sometimes operating practically independently of the Malian military (FAMa), led to a degradation of FAMa’s combat capability. Without a unified policy of interaction between Russian military planners, Russian military intelligence, Wagner’s commanders, Malian commanders, and Malian ministers, operations lacked a clear chain of command. In this environment, Prigozhin’s structures exerted a degree of independence—still far less than what Wagner commanders enjoyed in CAR—but they still found themselves drawn into the economics of the conflict and tied to the Malian establishment.

Following the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in August 20023, employees of his structures within Russia were redistributed among security forces or pushed out to Belarus. The handover of African units, however, was more complicated. It was not possible to disband Wagner units or replace them with other structures, since the preparation of cohesive, well-coordinated units takes time.

A half-handover, however, still took place, from PMC Wagner to the MoD-subordinated Africa Corps. In Mali, combat units of PMC Wagner stayed directly involved in hostilities, while a group of military advisers from Africa Corps, together with the Malian General Staff, were involved in planning operations. There were still issues of command and control, supplies, and logistics; Wagner’s assault detachments were technically subordinate to FAMa. The General Staff worked with Russian officers to plan operations, while Wagner commanders tended to receive discrete tasks.

Moreover, Russia’s war in Ukraine drained Africa of experienced Wagner fighters and specialists. The belief that Africa was an “easier” deployment than to Ukraine, issues of nepotism in getting those deployments, and rewards for loyalty over skill further degraded the quality of forces in Mali. Wagner’s routing at Tinzaouaten, an ambush that saw as many as 100 Wagner fighters killed, was the culmination of these trends.

The ambush has given leverage to military officers and experts arguing for Russia to scale back direct participation in Malian military operations. Russians passing through Mali are well aware that Moscow lacks the capacity and desire to tackle the Sahel’s massive developmental, economic, and humanitarian crises. This group is lobbying to shift focus to training local army and law enforcement forces in the region.

Of course, the demand for direct participation is not unanimous among Sahelian states. The military leadership of Niger has not expressed a desire for assault detachments, and the head of the military government of Burkina Faso, Captain Traoré, has repeatedly spoken against foreign military units operating in the country. In Mali, where assault detachments are in demand, the recent delivery of military equipment, including tanks and armored vehicles likely evacuated from Russian military bases in Syria, may serve to reassure Bamako of Moscow’s continued support.

Africa Corps personnel are supposed to be largely comprised of instructors, with combat units intended as an operational reserve to ensure the security of administrative centers and critical infrastructure. The announcement of a 5,000-strong special joint military force of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso to combat terrorism may fit into this new paradigm, and it is possible Russian instructors will focus on training this force in particular.

Russian investment is planned for soft-power initiatives beyond military training. Government and private initiatives are expected to start non-profits and public associations that capitalize on anti-Western sentiment and distrust of Western interventions in the Sahel. Despite agreement on the importance of traditional values and the failures of liberalism, meaningful cooperation with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump in Africa remains unlikely. The allure of a Global South aligned against a collective West remains more potent for now.

Indeed, competition between PMCs may be more likely. Trump’s foreign policy is looking to scale back military and humanitarian operations in the Middle East and Africa to focus on North and South America, creating new market opportunities for America’s own private security industry in Africa.

Prigozhin was able to undercut his Western competition through his own deep pockets and access to Russian military equipment and subsidies, which allowed him to tolerate serious risk in hope of long-term returns. Whether American PMCs can lobby for similar deals remains to be seen. If they do and they stick to training, not offensive operations, African leaders will be well-placed to take advantage of a more competitive market.