Since the beginning of June, the Wagner group has definitively left Mali, where it had been operating since 2021. It leaves its place to the Africa Corps, a new Russian paramilitary entity, announced for the first time in November 2023 on Telegram. Unlike Wagner, which is officially private, the Africa Corps is directly attached to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
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He is placed under the authority of central figures of Russian military power: Deputy Minister Yunus-bek Evkurov and GRU General Andreï Averianov. Heir to Wagner, he took over part of the workforce and his commanders, but acted in a much more institutionalized framework. Its name controversially refers to the Nazi expeditionary force present in North Africa during the Second World War.
What are its missions?
The Africa Corps aims to defend Russia’s geopolitical and economic interests on the African continent. Its main mission: to provide military support to regimes allied with the Kremlin, particularly against jihadist groups. Moscow’s new armed wing supplies equipment, trains local troops, and carries out counter-insurgency operations.
Deployed in Mali – particularly in Bamako and in the center of the country – it is also active in Libya, Burkina Faso (Loumbila base), the Central African Republic, Sudan and Niger.
Its action is part of a broader Russian strategy: filling the void left by Western powers, notably France, and taking control of strategic resources such as Nigerien uranium. In 2024, the Africa Corps was even sent to Ukraine to participate in the Kharkiv offensive, a sign of its hybrid function, both African and global military.
A group already targeted by international sanctions
The Africa Corps’ involvement in violence and controversial operations quickly sparked international reactions. In November 2024, the United Kingdom sanctioned the organization for its role in serious human rights violations and the plunder of African natural resources. The Espanola Battalion and the Bears Brigade, two units linked to the group, are also targeted.
London accuses the Kremlin of using the Africa Corps to indirectly finance its war in Ukraine while lastingly destabilizing several African countries. Three companies affiliated with Wagner were also sanctioned in the same context, including Marko Mining and the Central African radio Lengo Sengo. These sanctions aim to hinder Russia’s growing influence in Africa, counter its geostrategic ambitions and defend regional stability.
The Africa Corps thus appears as an official and structured extension of Russian military policy in Africa, in a context of global redeployment of the Western presence and the struggle for influence on the continent.
