JOHANNESBURG, South Arica—Russia’s Africa Corps, the successor to the Wagner Group, is strengthening in terms of strategy, capacity, manpower, and military equipment, defying predictions by Western intelligence agencies, according to a new report by the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM).
In August 2023, following the suspected assassination by the Kremlin of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin after he led a rebellion against President Vladimir Putin’s military commanders, forecasts were that Russia’s military influence in Africa would wane.
International security and military analyst Filip Bryjka and Jedrzej Czerep, head of PISM’s Africa Program, write that the Africa Corps is now firmly under the umbrella of three Russian state security services, which aim to have between 30,000 to 40,000 troops in Africa by the end of 2024.
However unlikely this is, given Moscow’s commitments in Ukraine, they write that the Africa Corps’ ambitions show President Putin is dedicated to establishing a large military presence on the world’s most mineral-rich continent.
Their report puts the current number of Russian troops in Africa at 6,000, with around half being “former Wagner fighters, with combat experience.”
Mr. Bryjka and Mr. Czerep, who had access to a variety of sources including Russian military documents, say that the Kremlin wants to use the Africa Corps to create an anti-Western bloc stretching from Guinea in West Africa to Eritrea in the East.
This would give Russia access to ports on the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea, and large amounts of natural resources, including critical minerals, gold, diamonds, and oil.
Some of the proposed bloc’s pieces are already in place, with the military juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger expelling forces from former colonial ruler, France, replacing them with Africa Corps troops.
The Polish analysts say the Kremlin has dismantled “Prigozhin’s empire,” giving control of Wagner’s business, propaganda, and mercenary components to Military Intelligence (GRU), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and the Federal Security Service (FSB), formerly known as the KGB.
They find the Africa Corps has retained some aspects of Mr. Prigozhin’s strategy on the continent.
“In return for providing military services to local regimes, Russian companies gain the opportunity to exploit the natural resources located there [including gold, diamonds, oil, timber, uranium, and rare earth metals],” write the researchers.
“The funds obtained in this way, which are impossible to estimate precisely, are primarily used to finance the group.
“However, they can also be used to some extent to pay for the war effort in Ukraine. Russia, for example, settled in gold a 2022 contract worth $1.75 billion for the purchase of 6,000 Iranian Shahed-136 drones.”
According to Mr. Bryjka and Mr. Czerep, the Africa Corp intends to establish a “center of influence” and a “logistical hub” in Libya, where Moscow is supporting rebels that control the eastern parts of the oil-rich country.
A military agreement between the corps and rebel leader Gen. Khalifa Haftar allows for a permanent Russian naval base in the port of Tobruk, which would put Moscow’s forces within striking distance of targets across Europe.
Currently, says the report, the center of the Africa Corps’ power is the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which comprises Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
In January, the states announced they were leaving the regional organization ECOWAS, which they accused of being controlled by the West.
Mr. Bryjka and Mr. Czerep say plans by Russia to use the Africa Corps to establish gold refineries and to build nuclear reactors and solar farms in Burkina Faso and Mali are evidence of Moscow’s new, long-term strategy on the continent.
Their report says there are strong indications that Chad will be next to align formally with Moscow, with U.S. special ops forces having left the country in early May.
The authors make several recommendations to counter Africa Corps activities on the continent, including that Western powers better coordinate the imposition of sanctions on actors linked to the force; and that the West should consider targeting the Africa Corps with “cyberattacks to disrupt infrastructure used for disinformation campaigns [including troll and bot farms in Africa].”
