A prime example of Russian state capture in Africa is the Central African Republic (CAR). President Faustin-Archange Touadéra brokered a deal with Russia for arms, mercenaries and a protection force in return for access to CAR diamond and gold mines. A Russian, Valery Zakharov, is now the country’s national security advisor. Once Russia gained control of the state, CAR’s longtime supporter, France, was compelled to pull out, further advancing Moscow’s geostrategic interests.
The roughly 2,000 mercenaries from the notorious Wagner Group, a shadowy paramilitary force linked to Russian defence intelligence, have been less focused on their professed role – stabilisation – than protecting the mines and keeping Touadéra in power. This includes tilting the scales of the December 2020 presidential election while Wagner-trained local cadres target opponents of Touadéra and Russia on social media.
Absent oversight, Wagner’s human rights abuses have mounted. Wagner has even taken a threatening posture against the UN peacekeeping mission in the country. Government officials who have raised concerns about undue Russian influence have been fired and threatened. Opposition leaders have fled the country in fear.
So, while Touadéra and the Russians are thriving under this arrangement, ordinary citizens face rampant insecurity, worsening corruption and reduced civil liberties.
This highlights another problem with Russian state capture – once in place, the benefitting parties are loathe to let go. Extricating Russian entanglements from CAR’s political, economic and security sectors will require an immense effort.
In Sudan, Russia has provided political cover for the unpopular military government led by Lt. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, which seized power in a coup and has attempted to jettison a planned transition to civilian rule. Russia’s Wagner forces have reportedly encouraged the military to crackdown more forcefully on the protests, which has resulted in several hundred deaths since 2019. Russian disinformation aims to bolster the junta and discredit the protesters.
Russia has especially close ties with the junta’s deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, with whom the Wagner Group has been partnering to traffic gold from western Sudan. Hemedti went to Moscow in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seeking more aid, underscoring the degree to which Russia had captured the Sudanese junta. As part of the arrangement, Moscow is to gain a 25-year lease for naval port access in Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
While this relationship serves the political interests of the junta and Moscow, it perpetuates an autocratic regime despised by the public. It also cuts Sudan off from the investment, trade, aid and debt relief that Sudan needs from international financial institutions to pull Sudan out of its economic tailspin. This includes 350% inflation, a plunging currency and a projected debt of US$1.2 trillion by 2025.
Russia is the main external backer of another military junta – in Mali. Russian disinformation was instrumental in fomenting protests leading up to the coup ousting democratically elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020. State broadcasters now routinely parrot RT talking points and leading foreign media outlets have been banned. An estimated 1,000 Wagner mercenaries are presently in Mali helping to prop up the junta (for a fee of US$11 million per month).
Adopting the anti-Western posture of their Russian patrons, the junta has taken strategically damaging decisions resulting in the withdrawal of 5,000 French and EU troops in the face of a militant Islamist insurgency that has escalated since the junta seized power. As in CAR, human rights abuses by Wagner and Malian forces have worsened and opposition voices are increasingly marginalised.
What each of these cases reveal is that Russian state capture in Africa deals a losing hand to African citizens, who pay a dear cost in lost sovereignty, democracy, security and economic development.