While rebels were toppling Russian ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, another friend of Moscow, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, was being chaperoned by Kremlin-backed mercenaries in the conflict-ridden Central African Republic (CAR), where he yearned to be ousted by armed groups.
Aboubakar Siddick, spokesperson for an alliance of rebel groups in CAR known as the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC-F), said that CPC-F rebels were feeling “inspired” by Assad’s ouster, stating, “Touadéra’s dismissal is imperative.”
In a sign of the importance Russia places on its relationships in Africa, Vladimir Putin met Thursday with Touadéra in Moscow, in what were the Russian president’s first international talks this year. Decades of conflict in CAR mirror the instability in other fragile African states where reliance on Russia’s military offerings has become increasingly prevalent, amid an aggressive push by Moscow to lessen Western influence on the continent.
As Russia’s foothold in Africa expands—most notably in the mineral-rich Sahel region that is beset by recurring coups, armed rebellion, and extremist insurgency—anti-Western sentiments, partly fueled by Russian propaganda, are engineering the exit of Western troops from swathes of territory. The Kremlin is the most favored to fill the vacuum they leave.
Ivory Coast and Chad are the latest in a string of former French colonies in West and Central Africa to demand the withdrawal of French and other Western forces from their territories, treading in the path of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Those three, all now controlled by juntas, have since turned to Russia for security support, ignoring calls from their Western ex-partners for a swift return to civilian rule.
Moscow is also a sought-after partner by non-French former colonies such as Equatorial Guinea, which hosts an estimated 200 military instructors deployed by Russia in November to protect the Central African nation’s presidency. Its authoritarian leader, President Teodoro Obiang, 82, has ruled the tiny, oil-rich country for 45 years following a coup in 1979. Outside West and Central Africa, Russia is bolstering its presence in the continent’s north, where Wagner forces back eastern Libya’s de facto ruler, Gen. Khalifa Haftar.
Wagner Group’s Influence Grows in CAR Amid Regional Changes
In CAR, an erstwhile French colony, the Russian mercenaries that have operated in the country since 2018 have become the dominant force, following the final exit of French troops in 2022. At Thursday’s meeting with Putin, Touadéra thanked the Russian leader for supporting his nation and helping it to achieve stability. The French—who deployed to CAR to help stabilize the nation after a coup in 2013 sparked a civil war—retreated over what the armed forces ministry said was CAR’s failure to halt “massive disinformation campaigns” targeting France amid a competition with Russia for influence.
French President Emmanuel Macron last week slammed African leaders for showing “ingratitude” over the deployment of his nation’s troops in the Sahel, saying that Sahel states only remained sovereign because of the arrival of French forces. He also dismissed the notion that French troops had been expelled from the region, adding that France was only “reorganizing itself” on the continent. “We left because there were coups d’état… France no longer had a place there because we are not the auxiliaries of putschists.”
A US State Department report published last February outlined how Kremlin-funded disinformation had taken root across Africa with the creation of a pro-Russia news agency called the “African Initiative” —which, with the help of hired local journalists, markets Moscow to the continent while tarnishing the West’s reputation.
CAR’s army, bolstered by Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, United Nations forces, and Rwandan troops, has battled to keep armed groups such as the CPC-F at bay and reclaim territory seized by rebels. But it is the Russians who are widely credited with helping the nation stave off collapse. Statues honoring the late Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and top commander, Dmitry Utkin, were unveiled in CAR’s capital, Bangui, in December, a Telegram channel linked to the mercenary group reported. Both men were killed in a plane crash northwest of Moscow in August 2023, two months after they had launched an abortive rebellion against Russia’s military leadership.
Wagner, rebranded as the Africa Corps and placed under the umbrella of the Russian defense ministry after Prigozhin’s death, still operates under the Wagner brand in CAR, where its mercenaries are possibly the group’s most active in Africa.
Wagner’s Hunt for Gold in CAR: Riches Beneath Poverty
The Kremlin’s guns-for-hire mission is far from humanitarian, according to Irina Filatova, a Russian historian specializing in African history. It’s a mixed quest for power and cash, she said, as Moscow hunts for alternative revenue to sustain its war in Ukraine amid a raft of Western sanctions.
Senior research associate at the University of Cape Town, Filatova said that,
“The Russians are providing this support (to troubled African nations) in exchange for either full control or a percentage of the control of their mineral resources. That is what Russia needs: It needs funding, and it needs influence. It helps its war in Ukraine.”
According to a World Bank assessment in 2023, companies linked to ex-Wagner leader Prigozhin had won concessions to mine gold and diamonds in CAR, where nearly 70% of the population lives in extreme poverty — the fifth highest poverty rate in the world. One of those companies owns rights to the Ndassima gold mine, located 440 kilometers (273 miles) east of Bangui, whose gold proceeds are valued at over $1 billion, according to the US Treasury Department.
The US Treasury Department said in a statement announcing sanctions in June 2023 that the company, Midas Ressources, had “in conjunction with the Wagner Group” denied “CAR government officials the ability to inspect the Ndassima mine.” The Treasury further reported that in 2022 (the year Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine), two companies—Diamville and Industrial Resources—took part in a gold-selling scheme to convert CAR-origin gold into US dollars and that the latter knowingly “participated in the transfer by hand of cash to Russia”—in a bid to bypass US sanctions on Russian financial institutions.
Gold, Guns, and Power: Russia and China’s Race for Influence in Africa
A report by the World Gold Council, an international association of gold producers, puts Wagner’s earnings from its illicit gold dealings at an estimated $2.5 billion since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine. This report said that,
“This includes the profits from mines and refineries under Russian control, as well as retainers for security services in CAR, Sudan, and Mali.”
Wagner had been arming a Sudanese militia group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is engaged in a bitter war with Sudan’s armed forces for control of the country. Both Prigozhin and the RSF denied this at the time. Wagner’s alleged atrocities in Africa are widely reported. In CAR, its forces were found to have “summarily executed, tortured, and beaten civilians” since 2019, according to a 2022 report by the rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW).
With the US largely focused on the Middle East, China has made deep inroads into the continent over decades, expanding military ties and claiming the title of Africa’s top trading partner for the past 15 years, according to Beijing. China has also financed tens of billions worth of development projects across Africa, including under its flagship Belt and Road global infrastructure drive launched in 2013.
Mutasim Ali, a legal adviser at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, a Canadian NGO, said that
“Russians and Chinese do not care about democracy, human rights violations, corruption, and the like… They’re happy to protect dictators and human rights violators. That’s one of the reasons why Russians are getting a lot more influence.”
China and Russia were the main arms suppliers to sub-Saharan Africa between 2019 and 2023, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Addressing African delegates at a summit in Beijing in September, President Xi Jinping claimed ties between Beijing and Africa were their “best in history,” as he pledged billions of dollars in financial support for the continent, in addition to $140 million in military aid. China’s policy of non-interference speaks to how different powers operate in Africa, with China focusing on economics and Russia on security.
In Africa, China is imposing itself on the economic level through trade and infrastructure while Russia wants to be the military response for the stability of sometimes autocratic regimes.
CAR, which has experienced decades of instability, “the message of peace and security gets across more quickly than the economy.” For as long as this continues, the Russian military presence will likely be welcomed by its leaders.
