Bessma Momani is professor of political science at the University of Waterloo and senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
At July’s Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, mere weeks after the paramilitary Wagner Group’s attempted mutiny, its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was photographed on the sidelines with some African leaders. This is a testament to the importance of Wagner’s operations for Vladimir Putin, and Africa’s key role in the Kremlin’s geopolitical strategy. Even the vindictive and loyalty-seeking Mr. Putin put aside hard feelings, allowing Mr. Prigozhin to steal some of the international media spotlight, to keep the Wagner cash flow coming into state coffers.
While Mr. Putin recently admitted that Wagner was the beneficiary of state contracts to the tune of approximately US$1-billion in the past year, it is more likely that the Wagner Group provides a lucrative boost overall to Russia’s revenues by exploiting minerals, gold, diamonds and ransomware. The sale of Russian arms, which were on full display at the summit, to friendly African dictators will also prove to be a continued lucrative source of state revenue arising from Wagner activity.
The Wagner Group now has a growing arc of influence across the Sahel region, including Mali, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Sudan. With the presumed fall of the pro-Western Niger government to a military coup last month, there have now been six African countries taken over by their military since 2020 alone. The Wagner Group has already stated its support and readiness to back Niger’s junta. As was the case with Wagner’s support for Mali and CAR’s ruling juntas and Sudan’s RSF militia, vast human rights violations and political chaos are sure to follow when the group’s mercenaries enter the fray.
The contemporary global rise of autocrats has clearly not spared the African continent, where many countries have been dropping on the Economist’s Global Democracy Index. Like in many other parts of the world, Russia is at times an instigator, and seeming beneficiary, of the rise of many of these autocrats.
The Kremlin is engaging in sophisticated hybrid warfare around the world, with the goal of trying to bring autocrats into power. Its tactics include traditional Russian state media propaganda, online disinformation, and supporting alt-right parties, leaders and social media influencers. Stirring up social discord and promoting cultural wars is the Russian government’s modus operandi, making its political system and emphasis on traditional social and family values look preferable to those of the West.
The geostrategic value of propping up autocrats in Africa isn’t just about accessing resource wealth or selling arms. It also leverages another tactic Russia has used in Syria and Ukraine: pushing refugees toward Europe. Italy has called out the Wagner Group specifically for spurring the exodus of refugees from Libya, where the mercenaries have propped up Khalifa Haftar’s rule in eastern Libya. The number of refugees in Italy has more than tripled this year alone and the food insecurity caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine has worsened a humanitarian and climate crisis across Africa and the Middle East.
But the European Union’s response to the growing refugee crisis from Africa is equally inhumane. Earlier this year, the EU committed €1-billion to Tunisia with the key objective of stopping migrants going to Europe. Tunisia’s President Kais Saied then unleashed anti-Black racist rhetoric at home and has rounded up thousands of Black migrants across the country, abandoning them in the scorching Tunisian-Libyan desert without water and food.
Again, Mr. Putin is playing chess while the West plays checkers, as the oft-cited geopolitical adage goes. We have learned nothing from Russia’s role in previous conflicts and are bound to make similar foreign policy mistakes again: doing deals with dictators, securitizing a humanitarian crisis, and ignoring the human rights abuses of geopolitical allies for political convenience while globally lecturing countries on democracy and good governance. Meanwhile, Russia is planting the seeds of revolution among a younger generation of African military leaders who are fed up with the West’s patronizing approach.
In Mr. Putin’s closing remarks to the Russia-Africa Summit, he accurately noted the rise of the multipolar world order, the end to Western exceptionalism and the rules-based order, and the rising confidence of African leaders to claim their political and economic sovereignty. To counter this rhetoric, the West needs to stop viewing Africa solely through a security and extractive resource lens, and meaningfully engage with this demographically rich and talented continent.