Captain Ibrahim Traoré, President of Burkina Faso, and Russian President Vladimir Putin together with Egyptian Al Sisi during the Africa-Russia Summit on July 28 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. MIKHAIL TERESCHENKO / TASS GOST (EFE)
Russia is expanding its influence and military presence in the Sahel at an unprecedented pace. After consolidating in Mali, where Wagner's mercenaries were crucial in the national army's recapture of Kidal against the Tuareg rebels last November, Moscow is now laying the foundation for its deployment in Burkina Faso and negotiating with Niger to become the necessary military ally become . To this end, the Russian government has created a new defense ministry-dependent military structure called the Afrika Korps, with which it intends to replace Wagner. Therefore, they will move from a decentralized private enterprise model to a different formula that implies more direct control by the state. In parallel, the United Nations officially announced its complete withdrawal from Mali in early December after handing over the Mopti base to the Malian authorities.
On November 14, after fierce fighting against Tuareg rebels, the Malian army triumphantly entered the town of Kidal, an independent fiefdom that had been outside state control for more than a decade. However, the Malian soldiers were not alone: around 600 Wagner mercenaries were part of the huge convoy that left Gao to recapture it. In various videos circulating on social networks, they could be seen aboard armored vehicles driving through the city after their fall. Days later, a flag with the Wagner logo flew over the Kidal fortress until it was removed by the Malian authorities, who prefer to maintain a patriotic discourse that attributes the role of the operation to their own forces.
“Could the Malian army have recaptured the Kidal region on its own? Who knows. “There is no doubt that Russian involvement helped and that, as is the case in Mali, the Sahelian forces now have better equipment,” says Amid Bencherif, a researcher specializing in the Sahel. The presence of Wagner's mercenaries on Malian soil has been proven since at least December 2021, as has their involvement in numerous anti-terror operations, especially in the center of the country. Russian weapons have been flowing into Mali ever since, and Colonel Assimi Goïta, leader of the Malian military junta, received widespread attention from Vladimir Putin himself during the Africa-Russia summit last July.
However, the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner's boss, after he rebelled against the Russian president has changed the way that country provides military support to its African allies. On November 22, a recruitment advertisement appeared on Telegram for a structure called the Africa Corps, which presents itself as Russia's new armed wing on the continent, directly linked to the Defense Ministry. According to the association “All Eyes on Wagner”, which specializes in the activities of this company, “the Africa Corps would be a practical cover for housing the operational personnel of the Russian Ministry of Defense, but also its security services, with a much more limited autonomy than that.” Wagner group and without a strong figure.”
The proximity of Burkina Faso and Niger
Burkina Faso is also moving closer to Russia. On November 10, a Russian army plane landed at Ouagadougou airport. According to various sources, about twenty uniformed officers got off the plane and settled in a luxury hotel in the Burkinabe capital. For the first time and after a year of rumors, Russian soldiers were seen openly at a chemical factory and had their photos taken at the laboratory for substances against viral hemorrhagic fever in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country's second largest city. Days earlier, this African country's public television aired a report on the fight against jihadism in the north-central region, which featured an army captain with two large Wagner logos on his uniform, according to All Eyes on Wagner.
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Although Captain Ibrahim Traoré, strongman of the Burkinabe military junta, has chosen to strengthen his own capabilities to fight against jihad since coming to power, he has carried out intensive, even forced, recruitment for both his forces and the controversial volunteers The Defense of the Fatherland (VDP) has also recognized several times that international support, especially in material terms, is required in this fight. Like Goïta, the Burkinabe leader had several conversations with Vladimir Putin at the summit in St. Petersburg and later by telephone, and Russian and Burkinabe military delegations met several times last year.
In Niger, where a military junta has also ruled since last summer, the new authorities last Monday canceled the defense agreements that linked the country to the European Union. On the same day, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunous-Bek Evkurov met in Niamey with General Abdourahmane Tchiani, the Nigerian President, and General Salifou Mody, the Defense Minister. According to a statement from the Nigerian government, the meetings were aimed at “strengthening defense cooperation between the two countries.” “It is obvious that there is a strategy [de Rusia] to expand its influence,” says Bencherif, while also hindering Western influence.
This Russian expansion comes after the authorities of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger expelled French soldiers from their respective territories and created the Alliance of Sahel States, an organization for mutual aid and military cooperation that arose amid a threat of military intervention by the rest Countries in the region against Niger. The three states also cooperate on economic and trade issues to counteract the sanctions imposed on them by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The UN mission in Mali also had to pack its bags at the request of the military junta.
Meanwhile, jihadism, which has plagued the region for more than a decade and is carried out by local forces of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, remains very active. The massive attack at the end of November against the city of Djibo in northern Burkina Faso, which was repelled by the army and left at least 22 soldiers and dozens of terrorists dead, as well as recent attacks by jihadists in several Malian cities such as Ménaka, are putting their operational capabilities to the test . Last week, the process of dissolving the Western-backed G5 Sahel anti-jihadist alliance began.
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