Russian influence in Africa is visibly increasing, mainly thanks to the Russian mercenary army Wagner Group. The Russian advance is not only at the expense of Western influence, for most Africans the arrival of Wagner is downright bad news. Because just like in Ukraine, Russian mercenaries in Africa also have no regard for human rights.
Like in Mali, West Africa, where the Wagner group has already committed at least one mass murder. Mali connoisseur and professor of African history and anthropology Mirjam de Bruijn of Leiden University sees this with regret. “And in Burkina Faso it’s even worse.”
Never disappeared
On February 23, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on Russia to cease hostilities and leave Ukraine immediately. Remarkable: among the 32 abstentions, 14 African countries, Mali and Eritrea even voted against. According to analysts, illustrative of Russian success on the continent. Where does this success come from?
“Russia has never left the continent. The relationship between Russia and Africa is very old and dates back to the Cold War and decolonization,’ says De Bruijn, who points out that the Soviet Union not only supported various African independence movements, but that many African students also studied in Russian universities. Another big boost for Moscow: the Russians have never been a colonial ruler in Africa and are not as infected as, say, the French. “That’s also their big advantage over the French.”
“The presidents of Central African Republic and Mali have excellent relations with Russian ministers”
Wagner as a pioneer
The Kremlin is thus returning from a never-complete disappearance, a return in which the army of mercenaries of the Russian business tycoon and friend of Putin Yevgeny Prigozhin plays an important role. We know Wagner mainly from Bachmoet’s meat grinder in eastern Ukraine, but it is much less known that the group has long been operating in various African countries and is very powerful there.
This involvement of Wagner takes many forms, but follows a fixed pattern. The US State Department is even talking about a three-stage missile: a pro-government information war with a disinformation campaign, payment through mining concessions and finally the involvement of the Russian military.
It usually starts with the club renting itself out as a bodyguard to a president and his entourage. Wagner also trains and advises presidential guards and the armed forces, an activity which, according to De Bruijn, is always accompanied by deliveries of weapons from the Kremlin. “It’s about protection, cooperation with the army, then Russian weapons come. And then it will also become a real partnership with Russia.’
“The French were incredibly arrogant”
From here it is only a short step to actively struggle with those in power. Wagner also does so in the Central African Republic (CAR), Libya and Mali. Or to the repression of the opposition, as in Sudan, where mercenaries brutally repressed anti-government demonstrations in 2019. The countries in which Wagner operates are politically unstable, undemocratically governed and above all: very resource-rich.
Wagner’s services and advice are far from free, the governments in question are often penniless, so the deal is obvious. Wagner is paid in very lucrative forestry and mining concessions, mercenaries protect and exploit gold, uranium and lithium mines, among other things. And this is also done with brute force. According to the International Crisis Group, the Wagner Group took over a mine in the Central African Republic with helicopter gunships last year, killing at least 100 local miners.
He’s in a panic
According to De Bruijn, the states that carry Wagnerians are in “a kind of panic”. ‘They have no support, they need support, and so a militia like that fills that void. This is what happened both in Mali and in Central Africa, in Chad and in Cameroon we still don’t know exactly what will happen, but it is clear that this is how it works”.
Unique mall
‘A solution to the kind of problems African dictators find themselves in’, as Wagner defines the Libyan think tank Sadeq Institute. Democratic backlash? No problem. We will help you with this, whether it is tampering with ballot papers or literally fighting insurgencies like in the Central African Republic and southern Libya.’ The image of the Wagner Group emerges as one single mall for dictators in need: there’s a solution for everything, as long as you pay, and it doesn’t have to be cash.
Get out of France
With the exception of Sudan and Libya, it is mainly in French-speaking Africa that the Wagner Group has made miles in recent years. This is not necessarily due to explicit pro-Russian sentiment, but rather the result of a deep-seated dislike of Western and French politics.
Young people in particular are fed up with the interference of their former colonizer who has never apologized for his often violent past. France withdrew from Mali in 2021, the last Frenchman disappeared from CAR in December 2022 and Burkina Faso signaled the exit to the former colonizer in February this year. Radio France International is also no longer welcome there.
“If we let those African states go in their friendship with Russia, it will have consequences.”
Drama in Mali
An illustrative case study is Mali in West Africa, where the French (and later the United Nations) fought Islamist insurgents but were expelled by Malian rulers in 2022. This was not only instigated by Wagners but is was also mainly the result of the undiplomatic behavior of the French. ‘French Foreign Minister Le Drian was incredibly tough and called Malians for anything, there was an embargo against the regime which the French call ‘junta’. Malians naturally fall for it, because they see themselves as a legitimate story. The French eventually lost that battle, and perhaps rightly so because they were incredibly arrogant.”
The Wagner group had been active in Mali for some time, which, according to De Bruijn, was all the more reason for the French to get their money’s worth. “Wagner was already there. This is also one of the reasons France left, they said: ‘We don’t want to burn ourselves with this complicated situation, because a lot of violence is entering the country with the Wagner group.’
Between the devil and the deep sea
The French understood this well, for since their departure Wagner has gone about his business undisturbed in what De Bruijn calls a “very violent and stratified internal conflict”. Some background: In 2015, Mali’s rural central region rebelled against the southern government over consistent economic and political discrimination against urbanized southern regions.
According to De Bruijn, that fight was then “hijacked” by jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda and later the Islamic State. With which a complex history has been flattened into a fight against Islamic terrorism, a history in which the French, the UN and the EU have gotten along.
“The fight against terrorism is confused with a local problem”
And now also Wagner, who has been given some carte blanche in central Mali. De Bruijn: ‘Wagner has opened the attack on the rural area (…) Thus entire villages are razed to the ground. People with shorts and beards are shot at random. Now you have a very large area in the countryside, perhaps a third of Mali, where the state is no longer present. And what the Russians do, they go to those areas, they close that area. And then they just kill people, civilians. This is killing for the sake of killing.”
The sad low point for now is Wagner’s mass execution of 300 villagers in April 2022. Why? “Access to the gold mines. In Mali, things are found all the time.’ “By the way, it’s even worse in Burkina Faso. Ten thousand people were killed there, it is said, in a much shorter period of time than in Mali. This is just a silent war we’re in.’
Misinformation and influence
Disinformation campaigns and influence through social media play an important role in this 21st century race for Africa. Researchers at the Digital Forensic Research Lab discuss an online proxy war between Russia and France in Mali prior to Wagner’s arrival. Several Facebook pages have promoted pro-Russian and anti-French narratives and mobilized support for postponing democratic elections after the 2021 coup.
“We are in the midst of a silent war”
Not even France has clean hands: according to researchers, Facebook removed in 2020 a French network of as many as 84 accounts, six pages and nine groups that targeted Mali with anti-Russian messages and portrayed the military missions to which France a favorable light participated.
In particular, two Russian-funded media outlets are active in Africa: the Russian television network RT and the radio station Sputnik. Both broadcast in French, English and Arabic and have a large reach in sub-Saharan Africa. Less visible, but highly effective in stoking anti-Western sentiments, are the social media campaigns of the Russian Internet Research Agency, best known as the ‘troll factory’ of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin who sought to rig the US presidential election of 2016.
Wakes up
If Africa had slipped under the Western radar for years, Wagner’s tropical adventures are the wake-up call the West needed. In January, the US State Department called the Wagner Group a “transnational criminal organization” with “serious criminal conduct” including “harassment and violence against journalists, aid workers, members of minority groups and UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, as well as rape and murder in Mali.’A month later, CIA Director William J. Burns advocated overt or covert suppression of Wagner’s activities in a speech.
‘Wagner is a threat to Africans across the continent’
According to Burns, Wagner is “expanding his influence (…) in Mali and Burkina Faso and other places, and this is a very unhealthy development and we are working hard to counter it, because it is a threat to Africans across the continent. ‘
Certainly the Russians are seen as a threat, concludes De Bruijn, who adds that the way in which the West is dealing with the question is particularly crucial. “It’s threatening if we don’t address it in a positive way. Because if we let those African states go in their friendship with Russia, there will be consequences.’
Source: BNR
Sharon Rock is an author and journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. She has a passion for learning about different cultures and understanding the complexities of the world. With a talent for explaining complex global issues in an accessible and engaging way, Sharon has become a respected voice in the field of world news journalism.
