Russia Is Militarizing Africa

             While eyes around the world are on Russia — because of its war on Ukraine, which is negatively affecting Africa and elsewhere, the possibility of Russian nuclear arms being used in warfare and the possibility of forced regime change there – I don’t think enough attention is being paid to the long-term militarization that Russia has been facilitating in Africa.

            As part of Russia’s grand strategy of establishing political, economic and military relationships with many African nations, Moscow has increased its activities in the African arms market. “Arms sales are a central element of Russia’s foreign policy and are closely controlled by the government to advance economic and strategic objectives. Russian arms sales provide an important source of hard currency, promote Russia’s defense and political relations with other countries, and support important domestic industries,” stated a 2021 report by the Congressional Research Service.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, as of 2020, Russia accounted for 49% of arms imports to Africa, but that percentage has diminished since then, largely due to military equipment losses in the Ukraine war. The National Interest magazine reported that Russia has sold arms to at least twenty-one African states, including such weapons as T-90SA main battle tanks, modernized BMPT-72 Terminator 2 infantry fighting vehicles, Su-34 strike fighters and Su-35 air superiority jets. As of July 2021, Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-run arms exporting company, had signed more than a dozen deals worth billions of dollars for the supply of Russian military products. 

 

The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland has reported Russian support of Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar with snipers, Mig-29 and Su-24 fighter jets, SA-22 surface-to-air missile, anti-aircraft systems, hundreds of flights delivering military logistics since 2019 and an estimated 1,200 Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group, Russia is managing to carve out a region bordering NATO’s southern flank.  This could well be a preview of what is in store for the Greater Horn of Africa through the Eritrea-Russia alliance.

 

With the apparent objective of establishing a political and military relationship with Russia, it appears that the Eritrean government is intent on expanding its military adventurism in Tigray and elsewhere in East Africa.  This regime is known for instigating conflicts with neighboring countries (Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Yemen) since the early 1990s. The Isaias Afwerki regime has regularly supported armed opposition groups against governments experiencing internal disputes, including the militant Islamist al-Shabaab in Somalia, and these wars have led to the unnecessary loss of lives and instability within the region.  The addition of heavy Russian weaponry will only exacerbate an already tense relationship between Eritrea and its neighbors.  Absent an arms embargo on Eritrea, the situation will only worsen, incurring an even greater humanitarian crisis and political instability in East Africa.

 

Humiliated by its setbacks in the war in Ukraine, Russia may revisit its Cold War tactics and strategies and attempt to set up military bases in strategic places like Massawa and Asab in Eritrea. In recent months, Eritrea has shown great interest in making deals with Russia, as well as China, and given the current situation in Europe, there is a high possibility that Russia will reposition itself across many parts of the world and cause more disruptions to global trade, politics, and economies as leverage to fight continued Western sanctions. That is why Eritrea should no longer be viewed by US policy makers as a small country with minimal influence on US interests in Africa. Going forward it is not just Eritrea, but Russia and Eritrea that we may have to deal with in the Horn of Africa. More action should be taken quickly and before it is too late to reverse the Russia-Eritrea and China-Eritrea alliances.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the post-Cold War era brought a renaissance of private security companies (PSCs) and private military companies (PMCs). Both state and non-state actors have frequently relied on their services, as these companies are more flexible, cheaper, less accountable and often a lot more capable than regular militaries. Conflicts of the 21^st century, particularly the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saw PMCs getting involved on all levels – from providing logistical support to high-intensity operations.

“Post-Soviet Russia followed the trend of privatization of state violence relatively late, mostly due to the internal resistance of the armed forces, as well as to economic hardships. While there are thousands of private security companies operating in the country, guarding infrastructure and providing VIP-protection services, private military companies still cannot be established legally on the territory of the Russian Federation,” the CSIS paper on Understanding the Russian Military Today states. “Although certain legal loopholes…made it possible for a few companies resembling Western PMCs to operate in the 1990s, Russian private military companies gained worldwide attention only in the 2010s, as a result of their participation in the wars in Syria and Ukraine.”

According to CSIS, the Wagner Group has been an essential and controversial piece of the battlefield equation for the Kremlin in its war against Ukraine. The Russian government has denied any connection to the Wagner Group and has rarely acknowledged its existence. For the Russian state, CSIS says, the Wagner Group’s secrecy was the point: Its mercenaries could be deployed anywhere, with a minimum of accountability and a maximum of plausible deniability.  Lately, however, the group has been getting a lot more visible. As Russia’s regular military forces began to suffer heavy losses in Ukraine, the Wagner Group began recruiting more openly, promoting an “unforgettable summer with new friends.”

Following the deployment of its contractors between 2017 and 2019 to Sudan, the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Libya and Mozambique, the Wagner Group had offices in 20 African countries, including Eswatini, Lesotho and Botswana by the end of 2019.  Various reports state that by March 2021, Wagner PMCs were reportedly also deployed in Zimbabwe, Angola, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and reportedly the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Libya provides a vignette of how Russia pursues its strategic goals in Africa: expanding geopolitical influence through low-cost ventures that hold economic windfalls for Moscow and President Vladimir Putin’s close associates. In this way, Russia’s strategy in Africa is both opportunistic and calculating. It is opportunistic in that it is willing to take risks and quickly deploy mercenary forces to crisis contexts when the opening presents itself, like what Moscow did in Syria. It is calculating in that it aims to expand Russia’s power projection including over strategic chokeholds in the eastern Mediterranean and Suez Canal that could affect NATO force deployments in times of crisis,” stated an article by the George C. Marshall Center.

In a report entitled Nonstate armed actors and illicit economies in 2022, the Brookings Institution stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to create African dependencies on Moscow’s military assets while seeking access to African resources, targeting countries that have fragile governments but are often rich in important raw materials, such as oil, gold, diamonds, uranium, and manganese.

“Russian private security companies such as the Wagner Group purport to redress complex local military and terrorism conflicts with which African governments have struggled. They also offer to these governments the ability to conduct counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations unconstrained by human rights responsibilities, unlike the United States, allowing African governments to be as brutish in their military efforts as they like,” the Brookings report stated.

Two internal-conflicts have been raging in Sudan for years -- in the Darfur region and in the states of Kordofan and Blue Nile, while a civil war that began in South Sudan in 2013 has periodically reignited. In mid-December 2021, a video surfaced showing Wagner PMCs training members of the Sudanese military, thus confirming Wagner's presence in Sudan and not South Sudan. The PMCs were sent to Sudan to support it militarily against South Sudan and protect gold, uranium and diamond mines, according to Sergey Sukhankin, a Jamestown Foundation fellow. Sukhankin stated that the protection of the mines was the "most essential commodity" and that the PMCs were sent to "hammer out beneficial conditions for the Russian companies".

The PMCs in Sudan reportedly initially numbered 300 and were working under the cover of "M Invest", a company that signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry for the use of transport aircraft. In 2018, 500 PMCs were reported to have been sent to Sudan's Darfur region to train the military. In late January 2019, after protests had broken out in Sudan mid-December 2018, the British press alleged that the PMCs were helping the Sudanese authorities to crackdown on the protesters. 

In October 2021, a Special Commission of Inquiry set up by the Central African Republic government to shed light on violence in the country determined that human rights and international humanitarian law violations have been committed, including by "Russian instructors."

A team of United Nations experts also alleged last year that many forces, including the Wagner Group, are committing systemic and grave human rights and international humanitarian law violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, disappearances and summary execution, a pattern that continues unabated and unpunished.  The experts also received reports that Wagner Group officers have committed rape and sexual violence against women, men and young girls in the many parts of the country.

“It is not clear how many people have been victims of sexual violence because survivors are terrified to bring their cases to justice for fear of retaliation,” the UN experts reported.

In a February 2022 CSIS paper written by fellows Catrina Doxsee and Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., they issued a warning about ignoring Russian military and security activities in Africa.

“With instability in the Sahel on the rise, and with countries like France scaling back their military efforts against Salafi-jihadist groups in the region, Wagner’s emergence comes at a particularly fraught moment for Mali and is representative of Russia’s strategy to spread influence in the region through irregular, deniable means,” they wrote. “As Russia’s most infamous PMC works to entrench itself in a state that has been at the center of counterterrorism efforts in West Africa, the international community should rethink its strategy to stymie Russian irregular efforts in Africa.”

With the withdrawal of the French-led Operation Barkhane from Mali, the Wagner Group is now seen as the protector of Mali’s security against extremist elements and perhaps even for all of the G5 Sahel nations (Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania).

Russia could positively contribute to African peace and development, but instead, they seem determined to take advantage of existing rivalries and tensions to exacerbate conflict on the continent for their own benefit, no matter the toll it takes on African people.  African governments and their people – not just the rest of the international community – must examine Russia’s intentions and the impact of their military and security assistance before continuing to passively accept this troubling trend.