Russia is expanding its military footprint in Africa, delivering sophisticated weaponry to sub-Saharan conflict zones where a Kremlin-controlled armed force is on the rise.
Skirting sanctions imposed by Western nations, Moscow is using cargo ships to send tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery and other high-value equipment to West Africa, The Associated Press has found.
Relying on satellite imagery and radio signals, AP tracked a convoy of Russian-flagged cargo ships as they made a nearly one-month journey from the Baltic Sea.
The ships carried howitzers, radio jamming equipment and other military hardware, according to military officials in Europe who closely monitored them.
The two-year-old Africa Corps, which has links to a covert branch of Russia’s army, is ascendant at a time when US and European troops have been withdrawing from the region, forced out by sub-Saharan nations turning to Russia for security.
”We intend to expand our cooperation with African countries in all spheres, with an emphasis on economic cooperation and investments,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “This cooperation includes sensitive areas linked to defence and security.”
For Mali
From the ports, Russian weapons are trucked to Mali.
Russia's 8,800-ton Baltic Leader and 5,800-ton Patria are among hundreds of ships that Western nations have sanctioned to choke off resources for Russia's war with Ukraine. The ships docked and unloaded in Conakry, Guinea, in late May, AP satellite images showed.
Other ships made deliveries to the same port in January. They delivered tanks, armoured vehicles and other hardware that was then trucked overland to neighbouring Mali, according to European military officials and a Malian blogger's video of the long convoy.
The AP verified the blogger's video, geolocating it to the RN5 highway leading into Bamako, the Malian capital.
After the latest delivery in Conakry, trucks carrying Russian-made armoured vehicles, howitzers and other equipment were again spotted on the overland route to Mali.
Malian broadcaster ORTM confirmed that the West African nation's army took delivery of new military equipment.
AP analysis of its video and images filmed by the Malian blogger in the same spot as the January delivery identified a broad array of Russian-made hardware, including 152 mm artillery guns and other smaller cannons.
AP also identified a wheeled, BTR-80 armoured troop carrier with radio-jamming equipment, as well as Spartak armoured vehicles and other armoured carriers, some mounted with guns.
The shipment also included at least two semi-inflatable small boats, one with a Russian flag painted on its hull, as well as tanker trucks, some marked “inflammable” in Russian on their sides.
The military officials who spoke to AP said they believe Russia has earmarked the most potent equipment, notably the artillery and jamming equipment, for its Africa Corps, not the Malian armed forces.
Africa Corps appears to have been given air power, too, with satellites spotting at least one Su-24 fighter-bomber at a Bamako air base in recent months.
The vacuum
French forces supported counter-terrorism operations in Mali and neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. But France pulled out its troops after coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, in Burkina Faso in 2022 and in Niger in 2023. Russian mercenaries stepped into the vacuum.
Wagner Group, the most notable, deployed to Sudan in 2017 and expanded to other African countries, often in exchange for mining concessions.
Of 33 African countries in which Russian military contractors were active, the majority were Wagner-controlled, according to US government-sponsored research by RAND.
But after Wagner forces mutinied in Russia in 2023 and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed two months later in a suspicious plane crash, Moscow tightened its grip.
Russian military operations in Africa were restructured, with the Kremlin taking greater control through the Africa Corps.
