Africa’s significance is universally acknowledged; the continent is home to 65 percent of the world’s resources, giving it the potential to shape the future in significant ways. This may have been one of the driving forces behind the establishment of relations between Russia and Africa in the 1800s, more specifically between 1809 and 1868, when Russian explorers and scientists under the direction of Igor Petrovich Kovalevsky started traveling to various parts of Africa, including Cairo and Khartoum.
Relations between Russia and Africa flourished until World War I, when Russia dispatched military missions to Africa in the Addis Ababa region of Ethiopia and stationed a mission there. However, the establishment of the Soviet Union marked a turning point in the level of relations between Russia and Africa, with the Soviet Union providing material, advisory, and sometimes military support for the majority of the liberation revolutions that helped African peoples gain sovereignty over their own lands. At the time, Russia wanted to challenge Western influence in Africa as part of the Cold War. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, Russia exerted considerable sway over many African countries, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Mozambique. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia re-entered Africa via special military forces known as the Wagner Group, this time to combat terrorism and build broad economic and political relations.
Russia’s return to Africa begs the question: why?
Russia’s Return to Africa
The Russian economy is worth an estimated $1.4 trillion, and it is expected that the Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in the wake of the Russian-Ukrainian war will have an impact on it. According to projections made by international organizations, these sanctions will prevent Russia’s economy from growing back to its pre-war proportions before 2030. Russia’s total foreign direct investment in Africa accounts for less than one percent of the continent’s total investments. The amount of trade between Russia and Africa is also relatively small, totaling $14 billion ($0.4 billion in Africa’s exports to Russia and $13.6 billion in Russia’s exports to Africa, the majority of which are food). These figures pale in comparison to the magnitude of African trade with the European Union ($295 billion), China ($254 billion), and the United States ($65 billion). The majority of Russia’s trade with Africa consists of exports to Africa, which are approximately seven times greater than imports from Africa. Remarkably, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and South Africa account for 70 percent of all of Russia’s trade with Africa.
Moscow might not be too concerned about Russia’s limited economic footprint in Africa. After all, Russia’s ultimate goals in Africa are to advance its geostrategic interests, which include offsetting Western influence, normalizing Russia’s worldview, and establishing a foothold in the Mediterranean on NATO’s southern border. In other words, Russia uses Africa as a tool to advance its overarching strategic objectives.
It is possible to draw a connection between Russia’s isolation as a result of the alliance of the West’s camp against it and the revival of Russia’s strong interest in Africa. This isolation started following Russian policies toward Crimea in 2014, then the Russian stance in Syria, and finally the war in Ukraine, which prompted Moscow to seek out African allies in order to support its position in UN General Assembly meetings. Additionally, given the positive relations between China and Russia and China’s tendency to expand into Africa, Russia’s presence in Africa alongside China fosters harmony between the two countries’ policies and strengthens the East’s influence in Africa. The initial focus was on countries with poor relations with Europe and the United States, such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, and the Central African Republic, followed by African countries undergoing political change.
The Wagner group, founded in 2014, as the Wagner Battalion and led by the Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, had a significant impact on the reformulation of political and diplomatic relations between Russia and African countries, with the deployment of its forces to a number of African countries beginning in 2017.Since their initial incursion into Africa, these forces have been actively engaging in political self-promotion by propagating the narrative that they support liberation fronts fighting against French imperialist colonialism. Regardless of whether this narrative is true or not, Africans generally accepted it because of their positive historical ties to Russia and their negative relations with France.
A primary examination of the Russian presence of Wagner in Africa reveals strong ties and clear contacts with the majority of Russian firms engaged in mining or oil exploration in Africa. Thus, it is first deduced that Wagner’s forces’ primary objective is financial gain. To that end, the forces were initially stationed in most of the areas where Russian businesses operate, with the intention of protecting them from terrorist attacks.
However, a more thorough examination of Wagner’s activities reveals a strong political connection between them and the acts of resistance to foreign colonialism, particularly those that took place in the Sahel and the Sahara, both of which fell beneath the yoke of French occupation. The economies of those countries and France continue to have strong connections. However, the Wagner forces’ presence also aims to bring about political gains by ensuring that Russia has allies in Africa.
Although Russia frequently denies knowledge of the nature of the Russian Wagner forces, speculation persists that the primary purpose of these forces’ presence in various regions of Africa, including Mali, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, Libya, and Côte d’Ivoire, is to gather information about the level of social welfare on the ground, the degree of political polarization, and possibly the participation in some intelligence work by the 5,000 armed security guards who guard the majority of Africa’s strategic locations housing raw materials like gold, industrial minerals, and petroleum.
France’s withdrawal from Mali demonstrated the strength of the Russian presence in Africa, as Wagner’s forces filled the French void in Mali by providing the country with weapons, equipment, and training for the army, as well as geologists and lawyers to facilitate the extraction of raw materials in Mali and the sale of gold extracted from Mali.
Wagner also helped Russian prospectors establish economic ties and look for minerals in Burkina Faso, a country in another part of the Sahel, by acting as a political intermediary and providing security protection.
Sudan is another crucial location for the presence of Wagner’s forces in Africa. Wagenr provided protection for Russian oil exploration companies operating in Sudan and even aided in the smuggling of gold out of the country without paying taxes to the government. In addition, Wagner has strong political ties with General Hemedti.
As a result, the ongoing conflict in Sudan may present a fresh chance for Russia to exert more influence there through control of Wagner’s forces over key regions in Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic. This is because Wagner’s forces are attempting to establish a trade route to transport the output of the Sahelian mining sector to other countries, where it can then be sent to Russia, which can help Moscow access African resources through Wagner.
Wagner’s presence in the region extends to Libya, where 2,000 Wagner members are active in the country in an effort to seize control of the country’s oil reserves. Leaked intelligence documents suggest that Wagner made an effort to form a confederation region in Central Africa, beginning in Guinea and ending in Eritrea, using the country of Chad as a center from which to launch its operations in that area.
All of the aforementioned may explain why President Putin announced the cancellation of debts totaling $23 billion for several African countries, as well as the announcement of financing facilities totaling $19 billion. It may also explain why the Russian flag was raised and the French flag burned in Mali, Chad, Congo, and finally Niger. Wagner statues, depicting soldiers defending African women and children, appeared in Africa, a possible indication of Russian influence there. Clearly, Russia is now an established factor in the African equation and a significant soft power on the continent.
