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Thursday, June 18, 2026

Moscow uses 'Russian Houses' in Africa to lure recruits into war in Ukraine, investigation shows

By Sasha Vakulina & Aleksandar Brezar

Published on 18/06/2026 - EURONEWS

Ukrainian military intelligence has revealed that Russia's expanding network of "Russian Houses" functions as a recruitment pipeline for its war, luring young Africans with promises of education and jobs before some are sent to the front lines or into drone factories.

Moscow is waging “a war for the minds” of Africans by rolling out a hybrid network of so-called "Russian Houses" in addition to arms supplies and direct military aid to military juntas in Africa, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) revealed in its recent investigation.

According to earlier research, “Russian Houses” in Africa, targeting above all the youth, are already operating or opening in at least 22 countries, as part of Russia’s strategy to consolidate its influence on the continent.

HUR now revealed that Moscow is currently planning to open centres of influence in eight African countries: Nigeria, Senegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo, Mali, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

This is being carried out through Russia's federal cooperation agency, Rossotrudnichestvo, in collaboration with the Centre for Public Diplomacy (CPD), an organisation founded in 2024 with the stated aim of expanding the existing network, specifically targeting Africa.

The CPD’s official mission is to convey "accurate" information about Russia to Africans.

Brussels has sanctioned Rossotrudnichestvo, freezing its assets in July 2022 for spreading disinformation tied to the invasion of Ukraine.

Yet it has continued to expand its African footprint despite the penalties, operating more than 85 official branches abroad.

Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service said Russia allocated $1.85 billion (€1.6bn) for foreign propaganda operations in its 2026 federal budget, a 54% increase on the previous year — a sum exceeding the entire annual education budgets of several West African states.

What goes on inside Russian Houses in Africa?

According to available information, the centres screen Soviet and Russian films, often on patriotic themes, and distribute ideologically vetted literature.

They also teach the Russian language and coach young people on how to move to Russia as students or workers.

Organisers sell an image of a "happy Russia,” but according to HUR, in practice that promise often curdles: some recruits sign contracts with the Russian military and are sent straight to the deadliest parts of the front lines in Ukraine.

In 2025, then-head of Rossotrudnichestvo Yevgeny Primakov Jr announced that the government would fund more than 5,000 African students to attend university in Russia.

The educational opportunity is often the most salient motivator for locals to engage with the organisation.

Most strikingly, in January of this year, Primakov Jr himself publicly admitted that a "well-known African private military company" — widely understood to mean Wagner Group, rebranded as Africa Corps following the death of founder Yevgeny Prigozhin — had been directly involved in establishing Russian Houses in Mali and the Central African Republic, and that some of its members had since moved into formal Russian state positions.

Ukraine's Centre for Countering Disinformation described the admission as confirmation that the centres function as elements of hybrid operations rather than neutral cultural institutions.

The Bangui Russian House in the Central African Republic is run by Dmitry Sytyi, a figure who also controls Wagner's operations in the country and reportedly uses the centre as a logistics hub for the group's gold, diamond and timber trafficking, according to media reports.

The expansion of Russian Houses has closely followed the rise of pro-Russian military juntas, particularly in West Africa: centres opened in Mali in 2022, Burkina Faso in January 2024 and Niger in October 2024, all following coups in which Wagner or its successor forces became the new regimes' primary security providers.

Wagner and Africa Corps, which is controlled by the Russian Ministry of Defence, are among the most ruthless armed groups on the continent and are directly implicated in mass civilian killings and other war crimes.

In April, three human rights organisations — TRIAL International, the Pan-African Lawyers Union and the International Federation for Human Rights — filed the first case of its kind before the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, seeking to hold Mali's government responsible for hosting and failing to prevent abuses by Wagner and its successor force.

Run by friends of Putin

Journalist and former Duma member Primakov Jr is the grandson of former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who also served as head of the KGB First Chief Directorate, overseeing its transition to Moscow's foreign intelligence service, the SVR.

The elder Primakov was a staunch advocate of the theory of Russian supremacy and one of the main architects of the Kremlin's idea of multilateralism, a thin ideological veneer meant to act as a cover to Moscow's aspirations for control over former Soviet republics and elsewhere and a key cog of Russian President Vladimir Putin's influence machine abroad.

Primakov Jr has direct ties to Putin. He served as one of Putin's official "trusted representatives" during the 2018 presidential campaign and was elected to the Duma that same year on the ruling United Russia party's list before being appointed chief of Rossotrudnichestvo in 2020.

He is under EU, UK, Canadian and Australian sanctions for his role in promoting the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories.

Putin dismissed Primakov Jr as head of Rossotrudnichestvo in April of this year, replacing him with Igor Chaika, son of Russia's former prosecutor general Yuri Chaika and a figure separately sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2022 for developing plans, reportedly with the assistance of Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, to destabilise Moldova's pro-Western government, according to a report by think tank CEPA.

Igor Chaika and his elder brother Artem were the subject of Alexei Navalny's corruption investigation.

In a 2015 film, Navalny's foundation found that the two had used their father's position to amass fortunes through rigged state contracts, the seizure of a state-owned shipping company whose director was later found dead, and undisclosed property abroad, including villas in Switzerland and Greece.

Artem was placed under US Magnitsky Act sanctions in 2017 for using his father's position to "dishonestly obtain state property and state contracts." Yuri Chaika, who served as prosecutor general for 17 years, was never removed from office over the allegations and later joined Russia's Security Council as Putin's presidential envoy.

Recruiting Africans into Russian military

According to a report by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Russian information warfare has expanded significantly in the Global South since 2022, particularly in Africa.

DIIS said Russia brands itself in Africa as an anti-colonial partner to sway political elites and publics through “regime survival packages," which include weapons, political advisors and influence campaigns

“Between June and September 2025, the number of Russian military service promotion posts aimed at foreigners on the platform VK increased from 621 to 4,600. This meant that by mid-2025, one in three contract announcements targeted foreigners, compared to only 7% in 2024," the DIIS report said.

According to the Washington-based Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, through a shadowy network of online recruiters, Russia has quietly assembled a pipeline funnelling thousands of Africans from nearly every country on the continent into the front lines and factories supporting Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

“These were not the destinations the young Africans thought they had signed up for. Many were looking for jobs, training, or opportunities abroad. Drawn by promises of life-changing salaries, they instead found themselves trapped in a war far from their home countries," the Africa Centre said.

Misled by Moscow’s recruiters, some have been pressed into military service and forced at gunpoint toward the front lines, where casualty rates are exceptionally high, according to the Africa Centre.

Majority Leader of the Kenya National Assembly Kimani Ichung’wah testified in February that once they arrive in Russia, these recruits are “basically just given a gun to go and die."

Others have been trapped in drone factories, like the Russian Alabuga Special Economic Zone (ASEZ) in Tatarstan, a republic in the east-central part of European Russia.

ASEZ is a public-private industrial complex known first and foremost for producing Shahed-136 drones for Russia’s military.

DIIS revealed that Russian recruitment is also increasingly targeting young African women — Nigerian students in particular — to work in drone factories, including Alabuga, supporting Russia’s military war machine.

'Ideological weapon of slow-acting harm'

Ukraine’s military intelligence stated that with more Russian Houses opening in Africa, Moscow’s recruitment on the continent will only intensify.

The final goal, according to HUR, is “to cultivate an entire generation of ideologically loyal Africans in order to conceal its colonial exploitation of their countries while using people as a cheap source of military manpower”.

“An illustrative example is Sudan, where Kremlin-controlled groups polluted water resources with mercury due to predatory artisanal gold mining,” HUR said, pointing out that “pollution of this scale cannot be eliminated for years – it is an ecological weapon of slow-acting harm."

“The local population in this scheme is viewed solely as cheap labour – both at Russian enterprises within African countries, and at the factories in Russia itself, where Africans end up after ‘training’ in the 'Russian Houses.'”

How many Africans have already been recruited?

In April, HUR revealed the Kremlin's plans to recruit at least 18,500 foreign mercenaries to fight against Ukraine by the end of 2026.

Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation stated that Russian Houses serve as key hubs within this shadow recruitment infrastructure.

In June, Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that at least 2,965 citizens from 36 African countries had taken part in combat on Russia's side.

Recruitment of Africans escalated in 2024, according to the Africa Centre, which stated that African recruits appear to be assigned to especially expendable battlefield roles.

This was backed by the testimonies of survivors and evidence found by investigators, both of whom showed that Africans were commonly used in high-risk assaults.

Not every expansion attempt has succeeded. In September 2024, authorities in Chad arrested Russian operatives immediately after the opening ceremony of a planned Russian House in N'Djamena, having already detained two others at the airport days earlier, a rare instance of government intervention against Russia's attempts to harden its presence.

Separately, an investigation published in Nigerian outlet TheCable identified 272 Nigerian nationals who had enlisted through associated channels, of whom 55 were reported dead. Russian Ambassador to Nigeria Andrey Podyelyshev dismissed reports of recruitment through these channels as "misleading" in February.

Several African states, including Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria, have repeatedly demanded explanations from Moscow and called for an end to the illegal recruitment of their citizens, but the Russian foreign ministry has continued to ignore those demands**.**

When asked about Russia’s deceptive recruitment of Africans for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, Peskov denied involvement, stating in May that “We are unaware of any such cases.”

Thursday, June 11, 2026

Illicit gold networks fuelling conflict, organised crime across Africa and global south, GI-TOC warns

The GI-TOC’s global risk assessment of illicit gold influence / GI-TOCFacebook

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By Brian Kenety June 11, 2026

Gold is increasingly being weaponised by states, criminal networks and sanctioned regimes as a strategic financial tool, while regulatory systems are failing to keep pace with rapidly evolving illicit supply chains, according to a new report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

The report, Commodity, Currency, Crime: How Illicit Gold Markets are Outpacing Global Responses, argues that illicit gold has become one of the world's most consequential criminal markets, acting as a financial backbone for organised crime, sanctions evasion, conflict financing and corruption. The authors contend that criminal actors increasingly control entire gold supply chains, from extraction and processing to logistics and trade, making illicit flows harder to detect and disrupt.

Released in Geneva on June 9, the 72-page report comes amid record central bank gold purchases and a sharp rally in bullion prices. According to data cited by GI-TOC, gold prices have risen nearly 587% over the past two decades, reaching record highs as investors and governments seek protection from geopolitical uncertainty and currency volatility.

Africa accounts for a significant share of global gold production, with major producers including Ghana, South Africa, Mali, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and the DRC. The report argues that the continent's combination of extensive mineral resources, weak governance in some jurisdictions and expanding informal mining sectors has made it particularly vulnerable to illicit gold flows.

The organisation warns that gold is increasingly being used as an instrument of "geocriminality" — the deployment of illicit financial networks by states to achieve geopolitical objectives. Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Sudan are identified as examples of countries that have used gold to circumvent sanctions, access hard currency and sustain governments that might otherwise face financial isolation.

“However, in practice, it can be difficult to differentiate between policy, selective enforcement of regulations and laws, and geocriminality. For example, although Chinese private sector entities have been implicated in the expansion of illicit gold mining in Ghana, Beijing has repeatedly denied involvement or support for illicit operations. In June 2025, the Chinese ambassador to Ghana asserted that it was a ‘significant injustice’ to blame Beijing for the spread of illegal gold mining,” the report says.

Ghana, Africa's leading gold producer in recent years, has struggled with illegal small-scale mining, known locally as galamsey. The issue has become a major political and environmental concern because of its impact on rivers, forests and agricultural land, while authorities have repeatedly linked parts of the sector to foreign-backed illicit mining operations.

GI-TOC said Russia has systematically expanded its use of gold following its invasion of Ukraine, including through military-linked networks operating across Africa. The report notes that Russian-linked entities, including Wagner Group and Russian military-linked structures including Africa Corps, have secured access to gold resources in countries such as Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic.

Criminal networks industrialise illicit mining

The study argues that conventional approaches to tackling illicit gold remain too narrowly focused on artisanal and small-scale mining. Instead, the report identifies systemic vulnerabilities throughout the entire gold ecosystem, including industrial-scale illegal mining operations, opaque refining networks, under-regulated commodity markets, recycled gold channels and emerging cryptocurrency-linked gold transactions.

“Illicit gold operations also drive demand for other illicit markets. In South Africa, for example, the same syndicates that control illegal mining operations are linked to human trafficking, with miners recruited under false pretences or coerced into working in lethal conditions, as the 2024 Stilfontein mine standoff revealed,” the report states.

“The syndicates are also connected to arms trafficking and Lesotho organized crime groups with political links. A secondary informal economy has emerged around the mines, with syndicates supplying food, liquor, drugs and sex workers to underground operations, compounding the human exploitation. Consequently, illegal gold mining in South Africa anchors an entire criminal ecosystem.”

The organisation also highlighted the growing industrialisation of illegal mining operations across Africa, Latin America and Asia. Foreign financing, weak governance and regulatory capture have transformed many illicit mining activities into large-scale enterprises that bear little resemblance to traditional artisanal mining. Criminal groups are increasingly controlling processing facilities, logistics networks and other strategic bottlenecks across supply chains.

A major concern identified by the report is the lack of transparency across global bullion markets. GI-TOC described international bullion centres such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), China and the United States as significant blind spots because they handle large volumes of global gold trade while maintaining limited transparency over bullion activities and gold provenance.

The report further argues that central banks are among the least scrutinised participants in the gold market despite record levels of purchasing. Domestic buying programmes in some producing countries risk absorbing illegally mined gold, while gold swaps and reserve accumulation programmes can introduce additional provenance concerns.

GI-TOC warned that illicit gold should not be viewed as a niche commodity crime but rather as an accelerant economy that amplifies broader criminal activity. The proceeds from illicit gold mining and trading are linked to environmental destruction, deforestation, mercury pollution, wildlife trafficking, illicit cattle ranching, arms purchases, conflict financing and human rights abuses.

“Links between gold and conflict have been well documented and are the focus of a multitude of regulatory instruments. While gold can be an important source of revenue for armed groups, a focus on conflict financing and restrictive application of terms such as ‘conflict mineral’ often produces a narrow view centred on non-state armed group revenues,” the report says.

“This obscures understanding of the broader political economy of gold and the state and other actors embedded within it, while overlooking the root causes of conflict and the more nuanced roles gold plays in conflict. For example, efforts to cut off conflict financing can have the effect of building the legitimacy of non-state armed groups among local populations. Securing livelihoods and other forms of service delivery has long been a tactic of organized crime groups to undermine state legitimacy while building their own.

“Such is the case in West Africa, where ASGM is a major economic driver and a critical source of livelihoods. Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), the most powerful violent extremist organization in the Sahel, primarily profits from gold through taxation of mining sites and transport routes, and has engaged in gold-for-weapons barter exchanges. By defending miners’ access to sites against state crackdowns, JNIM also builds legitimacy with local populations. Heavy-handed state security responses, including the targeting of mine sites, have compounded the security challenge.”

GI-TOC is calling for a fundamental overhaul of the international response, including mandatory supply-chain due diligence, stronger anti-money laundering oversight, enhanced scrutiny of international bullion centres, improved customs and trade data collection, and legally binding global standards governing gold supply chains. Existing voluntary frameworks, it argued, have proven insufficient to address increasingly sophisticated criminal activity.

"The gold market can become more resilient to crime, but only if the actors with the greatest systemic influence accept that their economic interests are better served by a more transparent, rules-based market than by the opacity that currently prevails," GI-TOC senior expert Sophia Pickles said.

Africa emerges as a frontline of illicit gold flows

Zimbabwe is emerging as an increasingly important node in Africa’s illicit gold economy, where organised crime, arms trafficking, insurgent financing and cross-border smuggling are becoming deeply interconnected, according to GI-TOC.

The report argues that illicit gold has evolved into a strategic source of financing for organised crime, armed groups and corrupt political networks. It warns that gold is no longer merely a commodity but increasingly functions as "a weapon of war and geopolitics", financing conflict, sanctions evasion and transnational criminal activity across multiple continents.

The study places several other African countries among the world's highest-risk jurisdictions for illicit gold influence, including Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa and the DRC. According to GI-TOC's new risk framework, these countries combine substantial gold production with elevated levels of organised criminal activity linked to natural resources.

The report finds that criminal convergence around gold is accelerating across Africa. Gold trafficking increasingly intersects with arms smuggling, human trafficking, drug trafficking, financial crime and corruption, involving not only criminal syndicates but also politically connected actors and private-sector facilitators.

"Criminal convergence is increasingly a central feature of organized crime operations in gold-rich regions," the report states.

For southern Africa, the findings are particularly relevant to Zimbabwe. The report identifies the country as part of a regional network of illicit gold flows that stretches from South Africa through Zimbabwe and onward to international trading hubs. Zimbabwe is identified by the report's risk-assessment framework as a jurisdiction facing elevated exposure to illicit gold-market influence despite comparatively modest officially recorded gold trade volumes, reflecting concerns that significant illicit flows may be escaping official statistics.

The report argues that African conflicts are increasingly shaped by competition over gold resources. In the Sahel, militant organisations such as Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State Sahel Province have expanded their influence over mining regions, taxing production, controlling transport corridors and using gold revenues to finance military operations.

"Gold plays a critical role in armed groups' efforts to build legitimacy, exemplified in West Africa," the report notes, adding that foreign actors are increasingly influencing African conflicts through financing arrangements and gold sourcing networks.

The report also links African gold markets to broader geopolitical competition, arguing that states are increasingly using illicit commercial networks to pursue strategic objectives. Russia's activities in Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic receive particular attention. The report notes that Russian-linked entities have secured privileged access to gold resources in exchange for security support and military assistance.

Sudan is cited as one of the clearest examples of gold's strategic role in modern conflicts. According to the report, both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces have benefited from external backing linked to gold revenues, while international actors have sought access to Sudanese gold through refining, trading and investment arrangements.

Dubai and regional hubs under scrutiny

The study also identifies Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon and Egypt as important transit or laundering hubs where gold originating in conflict zones can enter formal international supply chains with limited scrutiny. Rwanda receives particular attention because official export volumes have significantly exceeded estimated domestic production in recent years, raising questions about the origin of some exports.

Dubai remains the dominant destination for much of Africa's artisanal and small-scale gold output. The report notes that the UAE continues to receive substantial volumes of African gold, including material linked to conflict zones and illicit supply chains. Despite regulatory reforms introduced in 2023, GI-TOC argues that implementation gaps remain significant.

Global oversight struggles to keep pace

One of the report's central conclusions is that current international responses remain inadequate because they focus too narrowly on artisanal mining and conflict minerals. Instead, the organisation argues that illicit gold now permeates the entire ecosystem, from extraction and processing to international bullion trading, financial markets and even central-bank purchasing programmes.

"The systemic vulnerabilities that enable its circulation span physical and financial supply chains," the authors write.

The report warns that foreign financing is driving the industrialisation of illicit mining operations across Africa, allowing criminal groups to control processing plants, logistics networks and export channels.

"Criminal mining operations are increasingly industrialized and growing in scale," GI-TOC states, adding that foreign investment is a key driver of this trend across Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The GI-TOC identifies four distinct clusters of risk:

■ High-production, high-criminality producer countries. Russia, China, Ghana, Indonesia, Peru, Mexico, Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela and the DRC produce substantial volumes of gold under conditions of significant criminal influence. Several other countries are closely clustered in this group, reflecting the visibility and reach of non-renewable criminal influence in gold-producing states.

■ High-import, high-criminality hubs. The UAE, Switzerland, China, Hong Kong SAR, Turkey and India sit at the top centre of the chart, where large refining and trading volumes meet high resource crime exposure.

■ High-impact destination markets with moderate criminal influence. The UK, the US and Singapore sit further to the right of the chart, lower on the criminal influence axis but with import volumes large enough that any illicit gold entering these markets has outsized downstream consequences. Countries on the fringe can also play a key role as transit or laundering hubs. For example, Armenia was reported to be key to Russian sanctions evasion, importing billions of dollars’ worth of Russian gold in 2023 and 2024.

■ High-criminality jurisdictions with low recorded flows. The scoring also accounts for countries where highly organised crime scores coincide with low recorded gold production and import volumes. The absence of recorded volumes is not evidence of low risk but its opposite: criminality is extensive enough for substantial illicit flows to escape official statistics; for example, known gold producers and transit hubs Myanmar, South Sudan, Rwanda, Chad and Cameroon.

GI-TOC concludes that Africa sits at the centre of a rapidly evolving global gold economy in which criminal organisations, insurgent groups, foreign governments and international traders increasingly intersect. Without stronger transparency requirements, more rigorous due diligence and tighter oversight of global bullion centres, the organisation warns that illicit gold markets will continue to outpace enforcement efforts and undermine efforts to improve transparency across global commodity supply chains.

Tuesday, June 09, 2026

Colonialism in Africa

Anticolonial fraud: The Kremlin in Africa

Monday 8 June 2026, by Sasha Fokina

Among the many concepts coined by the Cold War, campism remains strikingly relevant in today’s increasingly polarized world. It frames global politics as a division between two camps: the imperialist West, seen as the primary source of global exploitation and instability, and its supposed anti-imperialist opponents. The term describes a tendency to support any force opposing Western imperialism and its allies — regardless of how reactionary, exploitative, or even imperialist those forces may be.

In the case of Russia, the resurgence of this mindset became especially visible after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As Moscow launched its assault on an independent country and proceeded to systematically commit colonial crimes both on the front lines and in occupied territories, some observers have chosen to overlook these atrocities, arguing instead that NATO’s expansion left the Kremlin with no alternative.

Amid the Kremlin’s growing suppression of indigenous peoples’ rights within Russia and the intensifying persecution of opposition voices — including those on the left — campist logic separates geopolitics from internal social relations. In contemporary Russia, however, this divide is even more pronounced. Despite its claims to speak on behalf of the Global South, Moscow extends its imperial ambitions far beyond its borders, reaching not only into neighbouring independent states such as Ukraine and Georgia but further afield.

In its quest for an anti-imperialist image, Russia increasingly targets African countries, which continue to be shaped by competition among global and regional powers. An alliance with an anti-Western Moscow is often framed as a path toward resisting the expansionist ambitions of former colonial powers, as well as securing stability and economic growth. Yet the reality of Russian involvement in Africa indicates something else: anticolonial rhetoric alone is insufficient to justify campism — or to deliver genuine liberation.
Cold War histories

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union, driven by its rivalry with the capitalist bloc, played a notable role in decolonization movements across many African countries. It provided key resources for liberation struggles: weapons, economic support, and ideology. At the same time, tens of thousands of students from across Africa received education in the USSR and other Eastern Bloc countries, further strengthening the appeal and influence of the Soviet project.

After the collapse of the USSR, Moscow’s presence in Africa declined sharply as the new Russian state faced internal crises. From the mid-2000s into the 2010s, the Kremlin gradually began to rebuild ties with previous partners on the continent. Its return to Africa, however, became a prominent part of public discourse in 2019, when Russia hosted its first Russia–Africa Forum in Sochi. There, President Vladimir Putin declared the opening of a “new page” in Russian–African relations. Western media captured the moment with headlines such as “Putin just took a victory lap in the Middle East. Now he’s turning to Africa” and “The Russia-Africa summit, Moscow’s show of ambition in the region”. Amid growing isolation in the Global North and a desire to be perceived as a real superpower, the Kremlin began actively promoting its influence in the Global South, particularly in Africa.

Conventional hard-power tools

Since 2019, the scope of Russia’s cooperation with African countries has noticeably expanded: Moscow has deepened its relations with historical partners and expanded its network among the new regimes facing regional and international isolation, as well as non-aligned regimes seeking to diversify their partnerships.

Economically speaking, Moscow’s presence in Africa remains limited — Russia simply does not have the capital to compete with other regional actors. While Russian media praised the historical maximum of the total trade value between Moscow and African countries which constituted almost $28 billion in 2025, for China and the EU this index exceeds $300 billion, while that of the U.S., UAE and India were over $100 billion each. But Russia has managed to carve out an economic niche for itself by exporting nuclear energy projects. As the demand for energy is growing along with the region’s population, Moscow is offering its own expertise, education for future personnel, and the nuclear fuel to run these long-term projects.

Another dimension of Russia’s strategic economic influence in the region concerns food security. In 2025, Agroexport, the Russian agency for agricultural exports, claimed that Moscow had become Africa’s largest grain supplier, accounting for a third of the continent’s wheat market. In total, Russia exports grain to around 40 African countries, with demand from Algeria, Libya, Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Tanzania increasing significantly in recent years. Against the backdrop of disrupted supply chains and rising prices — driven in part by Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as climate shocks and the lingering effects of the pandemic — some African governments have accused the Kremlin of exploiting this dependency for political leverage.

However, the backbone of Russia’s presence in the region is arms exports. In January Rosoboronexport — Russia’s agency for military sales — claimed that its exports to African countries reached the scale of the Cold War times, when the Soviet Union was responsible for 40% of supplies to the continent. One cannot be certain if this reflects the reality or rather wishful thinking by the Kremlin, given the limitations in Russia’s military exports capacities amid its war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Moscow remains the critical actor on the continent’s arms market. According to SIPRI, in 2020–2024, Russia accounted for 21% of African imports of major arms, putting it ahead of China (18%) and the U.S. (16%).

‘Military presence with a human face’

In addition to conventional arms exports, for years, Russia has supplied its African partners with the services of the private military company (PMC) Wagner. The so-called ‘Wagner Group’ has now been formally absorbed by the Russian Defense Ministry and rebranded as Africa Corps (perhaps a reference to the German “Afrikakorps” in World War 2), following the PMC’s founder’s, Evgeny Prigozhin, death in 2023.

A package deal from the Russian “military instructors” — the vague mercenary job description — includes not only the security services, but also political consulting on topics such as disinformation campaigns and staged protests, as well as the management of lucrative and extractivist contracts in an array of industries from gold and other minerals to lumber.

Case in point is the Central African Republic (CAR): its president Faustin-Archange Touadéra was the first African leader to openly welcome the Russian PMC as far back as 2018. Formally, the CAR leader invited “Russian instructors” to support the national army in its fight against local rebels. In reality, they became the guarantor of Touadéra’s own hold on power. For instance, they supported the 2023 constitutional referendum, the results of which allowed the president to remain in office without term limitations. Currently the “political advisors” in CAR are promoting a foreign agent law — the Kremlin’s signature repressive mechanism it has employed against its own opponents for 15 years and has exported to the friendly authoritarian regimes in decline. The Russian-backed organizations also conduct aggressive social media campaigns in the CAR, intimidating critics of the regime, with AFP sources [suggesting-https://www.barrons.com/news/central-african-court-bails-opposition-leader-7b4349c0] the Russian forces even track the president’s opponents with drones.

In reports from other countries that have experienced Russian military instructors’ presence, civilians have accused them of killings, torture and sexualized violence. Former Wagner Telegram channels are full of evidence of routine executions and desecration of corpses, especially in Mali. This is what Russian propaganda calls “military presence with a human face”.

On top of that, recent reports indicate that young African men who travel to Russia for education or what they believe to be well-paid civilian jobs are instead sent to the front lines in Ukraine. Moscow views them as a source of cheap labour, essential for sustaining its war effort. Often forced to sign contracts in a language they do not understand, thousands of men from at least 36 African countries are used as cannon fodder at the frontline. INPACT investigation identified over 1,400 Africans recruited by Russia, however, additional reports suggest higher numbers. Within months of arrival, over 300 are said to have been killed. Those who survive frequently receive no financial compensation, face racism from their commanders, and struggle to leave. With limited international scrutiny, the Kremlin has effectively built a transnational human trafficking network, a system of exploitation, capitalizing on the economic vulnerabilities of the very people it claims to support in their anti-colonial struggle.

Anticolonialism-washing

Such hybrid operations appear to be the perfect fit for the struggling autocracies among Moscow’s historical partners as well as the young regimes that find themselves limited in their choice of partners. For instance, the Sahelian juntas — the regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — heavily rely on anticolonial sentiments. Needless to say, those sentiments originate from the real grievances of the people against the centuries-long exploitation, with France still conducting years-long military operations in the region until recently. The young regimes appeal to this inequality and unfairness, refuse cooperation with the former metropoles. They commonly end up turning towards Russia.

The Kremlin first takes the opportunity to promote a fitting image. According to the Kremlin-disseminated conspiracy theories, the U.S. runs biological laboratories across the continent and Western companies produce deadly vaccines. The Kremlin appeals to the Global South by promoting BRICS as a project battling the American hegemony. Putin openly condemns the “shameful” history of western colonialism and consistently calls for creation of the Palestinian state.

Various propaganda outlets assist the Kremlin in spreading these narratives: Sputnik Africa, RT, TASS, as well as the recently established news agency African Initiative. Its content is translated into all the major languages spoken on the continent. The staff includes members from the former Wagner PMC network. African Initiative is headed by Artem Kureev. Reports suggest he is an operative of the Fifth Directorate dealing with the foreign affairs of the Russian internal intelligence agency (FSB).

In the countries where Russian influence is already quite strong, propaganda campaigns to shape the public opinion on the ground have been handed over to local organizations and opinion leaders. At the second Russia-Africa forum, the president of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, praised Moscow’s support of African sovereignty and even compared the modern history of Russia with African countries by calling both “the forgotten peoples of the world”. On a lower-tier, a Russia-affiliated Ivorian NGO called Total Support for Vladimir Putin in Africa (SOTOVPOA) even launched an international prize in his name, honouring what the founder of the NGO called Putin’s “liberating act for Africa.” Furthermore, the African Initiative organizes press tours of the occupied Ukrainian territories, during which bloggers from Sahelian regimes discuss the “reconstructions of new regions” and receive training in conducting information campaigns.

Against campism

As outlined above, Russia’s presence in Africa has little to do with the liberation of local populations and is instead focused on sustaining partner regimes. War crimes, extractivism, and the reinforcement of autocratic rule point to the underlying motives behind the Kremlin’s return to the continent — motives that are not so different from those of other neocolonial powers.

Many questions remain: Is the pretend-anticolonialism, supported by propaganda efforts and disinformation campaigns, convincing anyone? Are the protests depicting crowds with the Russian and Wagner flags staged or is there genuine support for Russia in Africa? Do a majority of people recognize the influence Russia has on their own governments, elections, economies? The generalized sociological data provides limited information: the latest edition of the Afrobarometer study shows significant cross-country variation. In Mali, one of Moscow’s essential newer partners, the positive public perception of Russia’s economic and political influence increased from 56% in 2019–2021 to 88% in 2023–2025. Meanwhile, in Guinea — no stranger to Russia’s business activities — the positive opinion of Russian influence dropped from 63% to 49% in respective years. Simultaneously, an average positive perception of Russia in Africa (36%) is lower than that of China (62%), the U.S. (52%), EU (50%) or India (39%).

The results of the Kremlin’s fight to win hearts and minds on the ground remain inconsistent, although it is clear that some groups are benefiting from its presence. At the same time, Moscow appears to be taking competition of great-powers in the region seriously. This is evident in the growing number of the Kremlin’s soft power institutions (such as Russian Houses), its expanding security presence, and investments in long-term infrastructure projects.

In the global context, the Kremlin’s cynical instrumentalization of anti-colonial narratives — including its claimed efforts to “liberate” African societies — appears to have achieved limited but notable traction among segments of the left. Beyond Kremlin-affiliated propagandists, this position is echoed by anti-intellectualist commentators and online influencers, as well as whole political parties (such as the German DKP), who denounce Western imperialism while overlooking the anti-democratic and reactionary nature of its geopolitical rivals. In this framing, Russia’s activities in Africa are often invoked as evidence to support such views.

This logic is not only deeply Western-centric — within a campist framework, only the West is seen as possessing the agency to commit significant crimes — but also quite dangerous. It undermines progressive struggles against regimes that present themselves as opponents of the West, whether in Russia, Iran or Venezuela. Meanwhile, despite ostensibly belonging to opposing camps, conservative elites in both Russia and the United States alike continue to pursue overlapping interests, by scheming over their own fascist International and shaking hands in Alaska. In the current global system shaped by capital and enforced by states, only genuinely internationalist and anti-colonial movements grounded in solidarity with people across both “camps” offer a viable path toward the liberation of the exploited class.

22 April 2026

Source: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment