A recent report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) finds Russia is currently implementing strategic manoeuvers in Libya and other countries on the continent through its Africa Corps, controlled by the Russian Ministry of Defence.

The Africa Corps includes the mercenary arm of the Wagner group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a short-lived mutiny over the ministry's handling of the war in Ukraine in June 2023 and was later killed in a plane crash.

“The Russian playbook has been remarkably consistent for decades,” the report by London-based RUSI said. “The overall approach is to use information operations and active measures to polarise a target population, mobilise factions in support of allied elites and paralyse support for opposing elements of a country’s leadership.”

Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU), oversees Africa Corps’ operations, according to the US State Department. The Kremlin, which supports the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Khalifa Haftar, is using the Africa Corps to help leverage the political disputes and abundant natural resources to increase its foothold in the Sahel region and have easier access to oil revenues, write ADF, a military magazine published by US Africa Command, summarising the RUSI report. 

Hafter is leading the eastern authority based primarily in Benghazi, which opposes the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. 

“The objectives of Wagner in Libya have been mainly to get access to oil revenues more or less indirectly through supporting Haftar’s armed forces, but also to ensure that it can access the broader African continent,” Tim Eaton, senior research fellow at the London-based Chatham House, told Deutsche Welle. “In that sense, Libya has been functioning as a bridgehead.”

The Africa Corps is deploying mercenaries and military equipment in Libya, establishing logistical bases in the south of the country (Brak al-Shati and Tobruk). It also supports Haftar's efforts to control key territories, including attempts to seize Tripoli. 

It announced plans to build a naval base in Tobruk to have control of Mediterranean traffic and explore gold, uranium, and other critical minerals in Sudan, Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic (CAR) through deals with local authorities or militias in exchange for protection, ADF writes.

The report pointed out that the increased Africa Corps operations in Libya align with broader geopolitical goals and provide financial resources potentially used to fund activities elsewhere, such as the conflict in Ukraine. It warned that Africa Corps activities challenge Western influence in the region and complicate efforts by the UN and other international mediators to resolve the political crisis in Libya. 

A few hundred instructors from Africa Corps first arrived in Burkina Faso, in West Africa, late last year, with about 100 deployed this April to Niger to train its military. A week later, the US announced it would withdraw about 1,000 military personnel from the country.

Both Burkina Faso and Niger are led by military junta and battling jihadist insurgents. In the former country, Russian mercenaries are from a new structure called Bear but also under the Africa Corps umbrella. Some Wagner operatives reportedly remain active in Mali and in the Central African Republic (CAR). 

Russia has signed military cooperation agreements with 43 African countries since 2015 and was the largest supplier of weapons to the continent between 2018 and 2022, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).