Two years ago, Wagner Group frontman Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash along with the group’s top deputies. A fiery propagandist and restaurateur turned mercenary warlord, Prigozhin led a mutiny against the Russian Defense Ministry in June 2023, just two months prior to his demise. The rebellion, spurred on by Wagner’s treatment in the Ukraine war and interpersonal conflicts between Prigozhin and Russia’s top brass, culminated with a dramatic scene of a Wagner column approaching Moscow before ultimately being called off. Prigozhin’s act of betrayal had all but sealed his fate and set into motion the government’s efforts to reel in the beast it had created in the Wagner Group. Just a couple years later, the Central African Republic stands as Wagner’s sole remaining foothold. Meanwhile, the group’s successor, the Africa Corps, has built on its foundations and is making inroads into several new African countries.
Africa Corps is somewhere between a new venture and a rebranding exercise; it is an attempt to recycle Wagner’s model under official Kremlin control. As a formal project of the Russian Defense Ministry, it advertises a variety of military and security related services, ranging from training to front-line counterinsurgency operations. In reality, though, it makes the same false promises of security in exchange for influence and resource access as Wagner did and has served as little more than a praetorian guard for autocrats seeking regime survival and deeper relations with Russia. The Kremlin, meanwhile, is now far more exposed than it was during the Wagner years.
In early June, Wagner announced it was leaving Mali after nearly three and a half years of operations in the country. Its parting message: “mission accomplished.” But even casual observers of the security situation in Mali know that Wagner failed to turn the tide of jihadist violence and instead, terrorist activity, separatist conflict, and civilian targeting have all increased at an alarming pace. Africa Corps’ formal takeover has done little to alter that trajectory. Africa Corps, like its predecessor, has suffered notable setbacks, and all signs point to the continuation of a relationship built on manufacturing dependency rather than supporting development and autonomy.
In recent months, Russia has sought to accelerate the pace at which the remnants of Wagner are either folded into the Africa Corps or eliminated altogether. In addition to the Africa Corps’ takeover in Mali, Wagner’s operations in the Central African Republic appear to be at their end. Russia has demanded the Central African Republic formally cut ties with Wagner, sign a new contract with Africa Corps, and pay for the continuation of military and security related services. Such demands illustrate the risks of partnering with Moscow. Much like Wagner’s criminal enterprise, which fed off systems of corruption and exploitation, Russia’s efforts to force the hand of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra demonstrate Moscow’s true sentiment when it comes to Africa: not partners, but pawns.
Russia’s interest in Africa is only likely to grow in the coming years. For Moscow, Africa offers a rare arena where it can still punch above its weight. At relatively low cost, Russia can undermine U.S. and European influence while projecting itself as a global power. This strategy fits seamlessly with the Kremlin’s irregular warfare approach, which relies on sowing instability, exploiting fragile states, and positioning Russia as an indispensable partner for embattled regimes.
Access to natural resources, including critical minerals, also drives the Kremlin’s calculations in Africa. But fundamentally, it has geostrategic ambitions—from the pursuit of a naval base on the Red Sea to access to the Atlantic via burgeoning relationships with coastal West African states like Equatorial Guinea. Russia has already entrenched itself in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, the heart of the Sahelian corridor that connects North Africa to sub-Saharan states. Port and airfield access expands Russia’s ability to project force, resupply its growing operations, and contest Western influence across multiple domains.
With the maturation of Africa Corps, Russia’s Africa ambitions have morphed into more formalized political-military relationships. Recently, Russia institutionalized its influence in the Sahel by hosting its first official meeting with defense ministers of the nascent Alliance of Sahel States. In this inaugural gathering, Russia signed a memorandum of understanding on defense cooperation, echoing earlier official statements of the Kremlin’s intentions to accelerate cooperation with African states. The move underscores how Russia is transitioning from mercenary back channels to overt, formal relationships that legitimize its footprint and further pull the Sahel into Russia’s orbit.
There are serious limitations to what Africa Corps can do for clients, and it remains to be seen whether Moscow is as willing to engage in the types of risky front-line operations that made Wagner a desired partner. Unlike Wagner, which gave Moscow a convenient layer of plausible deniability, Africa Corps’ overt affiliation with the Russian Defense Ministry means that every battlefield failure or atrocity is now tied directly to the Kremlin. This leaves Russia vulnerable to reputational costs, not just in Western capitals but also among African publics, who increasingly view Russia as a predatory actor rather than a reliable partner. Where Wagner could be dismissed as a “rogue” actor, Africa Corps is a formal security appendage, bringing sharper scrutiny from African civil societies, international watchdogs, and even rival powers eager to highlight Russian missteps.
But Moscow’s formal African expansion is not happening in a vacuum. As it has scaled up its deliveries of armored personnel carriers and artillery, primarily to Mali, China has leveraged infrastructure investment to build long-term partnerships in Africa and appears poised to take on a more direct role in security operations. Meanwhile, Turkey and Gulf states have carved out influence through drone exports and economic partnership pacts. Russia, by contrast, lacks the economic depth and political will to compete in these domains. What it can offer, at relatively low cost, is coercive capacity. Africa Corps represents Moscow’s comparative foreign-policy advantage—transactional security partnerships that undermine governance, weaken institutions, and erode Western influence without requiring large-scale investment. In the Kremlin’s view, that is a win at a bargain price and serves to entrench authoritarian rulers that are sympathetic to Russia’s worldview.
Yet even as Russia deepens these ties, its partners are showing signs of strain. In mid-August, Mali had two generals, more than 30 soldiers, and a French national arrested on suspicion of orchestrating a destabilization plot against the country. Instead of demonstrating strength, the move reflects growing paranoia inside the ruling military junta, an inward turn that has become increasingly common among Sahelian leaders aligned with Moscow. Russia’s presence is unlikely to calm these fears. On the contrary, Africa Corps’ heavy-handed approach reinforces the logic of regime survival over national security, leaving juntas more insulated but their states no less vulnerable to jihadist violence or internal fracture.
For the United States, transactional relationships appear to increasingly dominate the foreign-policy landscape. The danger is that, in competing with Moscow, Washington might adopt similarly shortsighted practices—accelerating partnerships that look more predatory rather than sustainable. Private security contractors are already circling, selling themselves as quick fixes to complex security crises in Africa. In April, reports linked a firm tied to Erik Prince to a deal with Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, trading security for resource access. That arrangement appears to have collapsed, but the logic remains seductive; outsource security to private firms to dislodge Russia. In reality, such an approach is strategically narrow and risks replicating the very patterns of dependency and exploitation that Russia has entrenched.
For U.S. policymakers, the temptation to meet Russia on these terms is real. The speed and flexibility of private military actors seem to match junta regimes’ immediate demands for security. But competing with Russia through similar instruments risks normalizing a marketplace of mercenaries and eroding the United States’ credibility as a long-term partner. Instead of framing Africa as just another arena for zero-sum rivalry, Washington should highlight areas where it has historically had a comparative advantage: governance support, institution-building, and durable security sector reform. These areas may be harder to deliver on and have proven difficult historically, but they carry greater strategic payoff than replicating Moscow’s model of short-term regime survival that ultimately leaves African regimes worse off.
Institution-building and security sector reform create partnerships that can survive political changes and reduce cycles of crisis. This can lead to stronger security forces able to operate independently, governments better able to manage complex political crises, and economies less vulnerable to collapse or predation. Investments like Somalia’s Danab Brigade and Kenya’s designation as a major non-NATO ally illustrate the potential of institution-building, even if the broader picture remains complicated. Somalia is still mired in crisis, and Kenya’s use of violence against protesters underscores that no partner is perfect. Yet these efforts demonstrate how incremental and enduring investments can produce more influence than the brittle security guarantees offered by Moscow’s coercive model.
The Africa Corps is a reminder that Russia’s global influence rests not on strength, but on opportunism. Its presence in Africa is disruptive enough to create headaches for the West, but it is hollow at its core. For the United States, the challenge is to avoid fighting Russia on Moscow’s terms. If Washington succumbs to the allure of security deals that are solely transactional, it risks becoming indistinguishable from the very actor that it seeks to displace. That would be a strategic error with consequences far beyond Africa.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Naval War College, U.S. Defense Department, or U.S. government.