In Africa, the Russian-backed mercenary group previously known as the Wagner Group left a path of allegations of massacres, executions, suffering, rape and theft. Because Russia has partnered with a handful of repressive dictatorial regimes in Central Africa and the Sahel, none of the declarations of war crimes and human rights misuses have been fully investigated.
Russia through Wagner has persisted in the establishment and consolidation of authoritarian governments that rely on violence and human rights violations to subdue discontent. There is a wave of brutality and repression against civilians and supposed terrorists in West Africa. Since 2018, Russia’s shady mercenaries and its official military coaches have laboured closely with security forces in the Central African Republic, Mali and Burkina Faso — in most circumstances leading or supporting military procedures against civilians they suspect of being terrorists or helping extremist groups. The result has been information and evidence of human rights violations.
At least 1,800 civilians have been slain in the time frame of Wagner’s processes across Africa since 2017, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). In Mali alone, ACLED data indicates that violent incidents involving revolutionary groups have nearly tripled since 2021 when the Wagner Group began working in the country. Experts say Russia’s military alliances on the continent are designed to defend authoritarian regimes rather than to address the kind of broad insecurity faced by civilians.
They appear to be trying to rescue the capital cities, protect the palaces, and protect the gathering of officers who are running the country. That’s not delivering security for citizens. This year, internal Russian government documents reviewed by experts revealed how the Kremlin has expressed its military and economic concentration in Africa as a “regime survival package. Russia’s backing package comes in exchange for access to strategically critical natural resources, such as gold, diamonds, uranium and lithium.
The sense of this [regime survival packet] offer is that Russia will supply elites in target countries with military backing, economic and political defence from backlash via the U.N. or other international mechanisms, and the backing of political technologists to sell their popularity domestically. Russian analysts, who documented the internal documents that levied the strengths and vulnerabilities of the Kremlin’s strategy in Africa, revealed that “the violent approach used by the [Africa] Corps may secure a government and fulfil perceived short-term needs, but is unlikely to bring peace to the hinterlands of the recipient country.”
That review came in August 2023 — about the time of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s demise, which led Russia’s Ministry of Defense to break up its mercenary realm and directly manage its military operations in Africa. A significant threat that Russian analysts highlighted was Russia’s explicit involvement in driving a growing perception of economic exploitation and colonialism, damaging Moscow’s anti-colonial message. “The critics acknowledge the fundamentally colonial character of the Russian project.”
