Wagner, a feared Russian mercenary group that is notorious for staging a failed mutiny against Moscow and accused of committing serious abuses against civilians in Africa, is being replaced on the continent by another Russian paramilitary.
Its successor, experts say, is the Kremlin-controlled Africa Corps.
For years, Wagner, which was funded by the Russian government and praised for its “courage and heroism” by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023, has embodied Moscow’s military offerings in the Sahel, a semiarid region of western and north-central Africa that extends from Senegal to Sudan.
With Wagner’s exit from swathes of the region, which is beset by recurring coups, armed rebellion and extremist insurgency, however, it seems the Kremlin wants a controlled, but unofficial, army to replace it.
Putin revealed at a Russia–Africa Summit in 2023 that the Kremlin had “concluded military-technical cooperation agreements with more than 40 African countries, to which we supply a wide range of weapons and equipment.”
The Kremlin is to some extent filling a vacuum left by Western troops, who were expelled by several governments in the Sahel between 2022 and this year as anti-Western sentiments reverberate around the region.
At a time when the West has largely turned its attention elsewhere, from wars in the Middle East and Ukraine to tensions with China, Russia has become a sought-after security partner both within and outside the Sahel.
In parts of the region, such as Mali, where Wagner sustained some of its worst known losses, with dozens reported killed in a rebel ambush a year ago, its forces have joined local militaries in combat against insurgents.
What we know about the Africa Corps
Wagner’s successor is not self-run. Unlike the mercenary group, the paramilitary Africa Corps is placed under the umbrella of the Russian defense ministry, according to the group’s official Telegram channel.
The corps consists of elite combat commanders from Russia’s army. “Priority” recruitment was also given to current and former Wagner fighters, a post on the Africa Corps’ Telegram channel revealed in January 2024.
Operatives of the Africa Corps have since joined the battlefield, conducting joint operations with Mali’s military against militia groups.
Wagner announced in June that it was leaving Mali, one of the troubled nations in the Sahel, saying it had completed a three-and-a-half-year mission fighting insurgents in the junta-led West African country.
A similar exit by Wagner has been mooted in the Central African Republic (CAR), the nerve center of the group in Africa.
Wagner has operated in CAR since 2018 and has become the dominant force in the Central African nation following the final exit of French troops in 2022. It is widely credited in CAR with helping the nation stave off collapse.
Earlier this month, however, military officials in CAR told The Associated Press that Russia’s defense ministry had asked authorities in the nation to substitute in the Africa Corps for Wagner and to pay for its services in cash.
Remuneration of Wagner for providing military services to CAR, which include protecting its president, reclaiming territory seized by rebels and keeping armed groups at bay, “is done in an extremely hidden and discreet manner” by CAR’s government, Martin Ziguélé, an opposition lawmaker who served as prime minister from 2001 to 2003, told CNN in January.
As a result, it is not clear how Wagner’s services are paid for. Still, previous CNN investigations found that companies linked to ex-Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin had won concessions to mine gold and diamonds in CAR, where nearly 70% of the population lives in extreme poverty – the fifth highest poverty rate in the world, according to a World Bank assessment in 2023.
Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash northwest of Moscow in August 2023, two months after he launched a failed rebellion against Russia’s military leadership.
Neither a government spokesperson nor CAR’s defense or communication ministers responded to CNN’s request for comment on the alleged planned pivot to the Africa Corps. CNN has also not heard back from Russian authorities.
The communications minister, Maxime Balalou, told CNN in January that a bilateral defense agreement “allowed Russia to provide us with weapons,” as well as “handling and training for our defense and security forces, (and) assisting our armed forces on the ground.”
The Africa Corps has already arrived in other parts of Africa, according to the Africa Corps’ Telegram channel, operating in West African nations Niger and Burkina Faso, both governed by juntas.
It is not known whether the corps functions in Central Africa’s Equatorial Guinea, which hosts an estimated 200 Russian military instructors, according to a Reuters report late last year. Equatorial Guinea has had the same ruler for 46 years.
What does Putin want to do differently?
Russia’s move to replace Wagner in Africa could be a “strategic rebranding by Moscow,” according to Héni Nsaibia, a senior analyst at the crisis-monitoring group, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
“With the Wagner name severely tarnished after the mutiny and Prigozhin’s death, Russia is likely consolidating its foreign military ventures under formal state control by erasing the ‘Wagner’ brand while retaining its core functions under a new name like the Africa Corps,” Nsaibia said in written responses to CNN.
“In this way,” he added, “Moscow can distance itself from the mercenary narrative while maintaining a strong presence in the region.”
Institutionalizing its military engagement in Africa could benefit the Kremlin in other ways, Nsaibia said.
“The Africa Corps is intended to give Moscow greater control over operations, and potentially more international legitimacy, and fewer legal and reputational risks,” Nsaibia explained.
Wagner has faced lawsuits from human rights groups over accusations of human rights abuses.
The European Union sanctioned the Wagner Group and individuals and entities connected to it in 2021 and 2023. Among those sanctioned in 2023 were “the head of the Wagner Group in Mali, where Wagner mercenaries have been involved in acts of violence and multiple human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, as well as various high-profile members of the group in the CAR,” the Council of the EU said.
United Nations experts also called in 2023 for an independent investigation into alleged crimes committed by the Wagner Group and the Malian military.
Their statement said, “the lack of transparency and ambiguity over the legal status of the Wagner Group… create an overall climate of terror and complete impunity for victims of the Wagner Group’s abuses.”
Malian authorities pushed back against the allegations, saying that the country “was unwavering in prosecuting and punishing proven perpetrators of human rights violations.”
While many questions remain about Wagner’s operations in Africa, there are mixed views about the impact its counterterrorism operations with local armies have had on the continent.
“I don’t see what Wagner has brought to the battle (against terrorists),” said security consultant Mamadou Adje.
“Since they (Wagner forces) joined the fight, jihadists have spread across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger with lots of civilian casualties,” Adje, a retired Senegalese colonel who previously served in Mali and Burkina Faso under West African regional bloc ECOWAS, told CNN.
As for Wagner’s replacement with the Africa Corps in certain countries, “I don’t see much changing on the battlefield,” Adje said.
In Nsaibia’s view, Wagner helped Mali’s military “achieve some tactical and strategic victories, notably the recapture of rebel strongholds.”
Nonetheless, he said, the group leaves behind “a state on the brink of collapse.”
Earlier this month, UN delegates told the Security Council that security across the Sahel “is deteriorating rapidly,” and that terrorist activity in parts of the region has intensified “in scale, complexity and sophistication, including through the use of drones, alternative internet communication, and increasing collusion with transnational organized crime.”
Ahunna Eziakonwa, a UN Assistant Secretary-General and Africa Director for the UN’s development program (UNDP), warns that the security problems in the Sahel “are beyond the capacity of the national governments,” and so global support is needed.
What matters, though, is that any help from external actors is “well-meaning,” she told CNN, adding: “We’re not promoting any kind of support in the military side or security side that undermines human rights, irrespective of where it comes from.”
CNN’s Anna Chernova contributed to this report.
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