Wagner Withdrawal Signals Potential Change in Russian Approach to Mali
Andrew McGregor
Executive Summary:
Russia’s Wagner Group is being withdrawn from Mali after a three-and-a-half-year deployment with a mixed record of battlefield successes that have come at enormous civilian cost.
Wagner’s replacement with the Russian Defense Ministry’s Africa Corps may signal a change in Kremlin tactics. Regardless of the tactics used, the Russian military buildup in Mali suggests that expanded military operations against insurgent and terrorist groups are imminent.
New Russian-Malian partnerships in the energy and mining sectors have accompanied changes in security tactics.
Mali’s relationship with Russia is entering a new stage as the Kremlin withdraws the last members of the Wagner Group, a private military company (PMC), and signs bilateral agreements on trade, development, and the construction of a Russian-designed low-power nuclear plant in Mali (TASS; Business Insider Africa, June 23). Russia and Mali signed the new agreements during Malian President General Assimi Goïta’s second visit to Moscow (Maliweb.net, June 17).
Mali’s military government has also announced a partnership with the Russian Yadran Group to build a gold refinery near the capital of Bamako. The move is in line with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s declaration that Russia intends to focus “primarily on economic and investment interaction … This also corresponds to and extends to such sensitive areas as defence and security” within African countries (Al-Jazeera, June 9).
The Malian junta is consolidating state control over the gold industry. The government recently took over the operations of Canadian giant Barrick Mining, intending the new refinery to be a regional center for processing gold (Afrikanskaya Initsiativa, May 30). Most African gold is currently refined in the People’s Republic of China, Canada, or Switzerland. Mali has two existing refineries, but neither meets international standards (Africanews.fr, November 24, 2023; Business Insider Africa, June 23). Mali is Africa’s second-largest gold producer. Neighboring Burkina Faso, which has also welcomed Russia’s Africa Corps, is fourth. Most of the gold found in northern Mali is obtained through artisanal mining, which is then exploited by Wagner personnel (Africa Defense Forum, April 9, 2024).
Malian security will be impacted by Russia’s Africa Corps, under the direction of Russia’s Ministry of Defense, which will replace the private military contractors of the Wagner Group. Mali is struggling with insurgencies in the northern part of the country carried out by Tuareg separatists and rival al-Qaeda and Islamic State bands of Salafi-Jihadists drawn from the Arab, Tuareg, and Fulani communities. The separatists and jihadists are known to cooperate on major operations such as the devastating July 2024 strike at Tinzawatène that killed scores of Wagner fighters and regular troops of the Forces Armées Maliennes (FAMa), the Malian military (see EDM, July 31, September 11, 2024).
Wagner personnel arrived in Mali in the fall of 2021 and announced the end of their mission on June 6 of this year. Wagner claimed they “accomplished the main task—all regional capitals returned to the control of the legitimate authorities. The mission is complete. PMC Wagner is returning home” (Novaya Gazeta, June 5; Lenta.ru, June 6). Wagner personnel in Mali were responsible for training the FAMa, combating terrorists, and protecting high-ranking officials. The Russian contractors replaced long-standing French and UN missions that were unable to secure Mali despite a decade of effort. Even as Wagner was announcing a successful end to their mission, al-Qaeda associated insurgents of the Jama’a Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimin (JNIM) were driving a FAMa garrison from their base at Boulkessi, central Mali, in a two-day attack (RFI, June 8).
While the transition from Wagner to the Africa Corps went smoothly in most parts of Africa with a Russian military presence, some Wagner personnel in Mali resisted coming under the formal control of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Most Wagnerites have been absorbed into the Africa Corps, while those unwilling to sign new contracts will likely return to Russia (Al-Jazeera, June 16).
During its three and a half years in Mali, Wagner claimed to have eliminated “four leaders of terrorist organizations, thousands of militants, and 11 of their strongholds … leaving behind a stable and safe environment” (Kommersant, June 6). According to pro-Kremlin media, “Thousands of terrorists have been neutralized. Bases and strongholds of radical gangs have been destroyed. The remnants of the groups have been pushed back into the desert, where they are deprived of infrastructure and resources” (Lenta.ru, June 6).
In reality, Wagner forces working with the FAMa have suffered repeated ambushes over the last year, with attacks spreading into central and heavily populated southern Mali (Militarnyi, June 16). The junta blames the increasing tempo of anti-government attacks on alleged French sponsorship of terrorists and separatists. On June 17, Malian spokesman Colonel-Major Souleymane Dembélé referred obliquely to the former colonial power:
Remember this statement by a Chief of Staff of a former partner country who said they would return in another form … Those who have financed terrorism for years are revealing themselves today, mobilizing, rearming, and financing armed groups to sow terror and discredit our forces (Maliweb.net, June 19).
The military officers who took political power in 2021 believe that the Tuareg of northern Mali gained too much autonomy in a 2015 peace agreement, becoming too close to French military forces operating against Islamist terrorists in the region.
The Russian Defense Ministry appears to be preparing for larger military operations in Mali. In January, a large shipment of armored vehicles and other materiel arrived in Bamako after being shipped through the Guinean port of Conakry. Among the vehicles were Boyevaya Mashina Desanta (BMD) infantry fighting vehicles, T-72B3 tanks, BTR-80/82A armored personnel carriers (APCs), Lens armored cars, Spartak armored vehicles, and Tigr armored vehicles (Militarnyi, January 18). Further weaponry arrived on May 31 for Africa Corps use, including 122mm and 152mm howitzers, a Bronetransportor (BTR) electronic warfare APC, Spartak armored vehicles, tanker trucks, and transport trucks (YouTube/Kanal 13, June 10; RFI, June 20).
Mali is proving a challenging setting for Russian military aviation. An Africa Corps SU-24M bomber made an emergency landing in the Niger River on June 14, allegedly due to the effects of a sandstorm, though it was also reported to have taken fire from insurgents (MaliActu, June 14; IntelliNews, June 18). In October 2022, a newly delivered SU-25 fighter crashed near Gao on its return from a mission, killing its Russian pilot (Defence Web, October 5, 2022). The SU-25 fighter’s replacement also crashed near Gao in September 2023, possibly after being fired on by insurgents who had attacked the Gao airport the day before (Military Africa, September 11, 2023). Malian fixed-wing air assets have now been reduced to four L-39 jet trainers supplied in August 2022 (Defenceweb, October 5, 2022; IntelliNews, June 18).
Wagner and FAMa have been accused of brutality and massacres of civilians in the name of counterinsurgency. A broad investigation carried out by a European journalist collective revealed a pattern of abuse by Wagner personnel that included “kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, no contact with the outside world, and systematic torture—sometimes to the point of death” (France24, June 12). The journalists identified at least six Wagner-operated detention centers, all located within FAMa bases (France24, June 12). [1] Stills and videos of atrocities and potential war crimes by Wagner and FAMa personnel have been shared on social media channels, leading to requests for an International Criminal Court investigation (Euronews, June 23).
The replacement of Wagner with the Africa Corps will be closely watched to see if it is accompanied by a change in methods and tactics, though it should be noted that most Africa Corps personnel are Wagner veterans. The behavior of the Africa Corps will be the direct responsibility of the Russian Defense Ministry, with the Kremlin’s ability to evade culpability for Wagner abuses gone. There has been speculation that the shift to Africa Corps from Wagner might mean an end or lessening in the latter’s use of extreme violence, but the methods used by Russian Defense Ministry troops in Ukraine do not encourage this belief.
In the pattern of cyclical rebellions, a separatist group becomes increasingly open to more extreme ideology. In this case, the adoption of Salafi-Jihadism by a people whose main motivations were previously political. The violent methods of Russian contractors and FAMa troops drive recruitment for religious extremists. The suppressive measures taken by Russian contractors and FAMa troops are in pursuit of an unrealistic military solution to the latest round of rebellions that have consumed northern Mali since its independence from France in 1960.
Even though the Africa Corps may prefer to focus on a training mission, the current pace of attacks on FAMa and Russian targets may compel further and even larger combat missions. The recent influx of Russian arms and armor appears to indicate that the Kremlin is preparing for a more intense armed conflict.
Notes:
[1] The Viktoriia Project is a collective named in memory of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died in Russian captivity in 2024 after investigating the illegal detention of civilians in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
This article was originally published in Eurasia Daily Monitor.
Andrew McGregor is Director of Aberfoyle International Security, a Toronto-based agency specializing in security issues related to the Islamic world. In October 2007 he took over as managing editor of the Jamestown Foundation’s Global Terrorism Analysis publications. He is the author of an archaeological history of Darfur published by Cambridge University in 2001 and publishes frequently on international security issues.