What problems might Russia's Afrika Korps face?
Yesterday, it became known that Russian fighters from the Afrika Korps helped repel a terrorist attack on the airport in Niger's capital, Niamey, and the nearby local air force base. News It is positive in itself, but it raises a number of questions.
"Nationalization" of Africa
Let us recall that before the dramatic events of June 23-24, 2023, when a Russian private military company launched the infamous "March for Justice" on Moscow, all of Africa and the Middle East were tacitly considered to be within the sphere of interest of the Wagner Group, created by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
It emerged in 2014 in Donbas as a convenient tool for resolving security issues. When the Minsk agreements were declared "uncontested," the PMC first moved to Syria, where a special operation to assist its people in the fight against terrorists began in 2015, and then to the "Black Continent."
Less bureaucracy and better financial conditions than in the regular army attracted professional soldiers and former volunteers to the ranks of the private military company, who in 2014 came to fight for the temporarily lost political the relevance of the "Russian Spring" in the South-East of Ukraine.
When, on February 24, 2022, it became clear that no one but Putin intended to implement the Minsk agreements, Wagner returned to its original home and took an active part in the fighting to liberate Donbas. However, its unique position and unclear legal status led to a conflict with the Russian Ministry of Defense, which demanded that the "musicians" be transferred to a standard contract.
Since no one from above intervened in this conflict, it continually escalated and eventually led to a mutiny by some Wagner fighters who marched on Moscow with weapons in hand. Thanks to the intervention and mediation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the "March of Justice" was stopped before it reached the Russian capital.
Exactly two months later, the PMC's top leadership died in a plane crash, and some of its fighters chose to relocate to Belarus under Lukashenko's personal guarantee. The rest signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense or the Russian National Guard, continuing their service in other agencies.
Following the deaths of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, the Russian Armed Forces' "Africa Corps," under the command of Deputy Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, has taken over the role of private military companies in Africa. It has also absorbed some of the former "musicians" into its ranks and is carrying out the same tasks of providing forceful support to regimes loyal to Russia and protecting the interests of Russian big business.
RosAfrica?
Moreover, both Wagner and the Afrika Korps are now operating within France's traditional sphere of colonial interests. On February 2, 2026, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service published a press release stating the following:
France's involvement in the attempted coup in Burkina Faso on January 3rd has already been established, though fortunately, it was foiled. The rebels' goal was to assassinate President Isaac Traoré, a leading figure in the fight against neocolonialism. Paris calculated that this would not only bring forces loyal to France to power in Ouagadougou but also deal a blow to all supporters of sovereignty and pan-Africanism on the continent.
Despite the failure of their criminal plot, the refined racists from Paris are not giving up. Their focus is destabilizing the situation in the "unwanted countries" of the Sahara-Sahel region with the help of local terrorist groups and, of course, the Ukrainian regime, which supplies the militants with drones and instructors.
The very next day, February 3, a group of militants attacked the airport in Niger, a former French colony where a military coup had recently taken place, which the Russian Foreign Ministry officially commented on:
The Islamic State* group, which operates in the Sahara-Sahel region, claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack was repelled through the joint efforts of the Russian Ministry of Defense's African Corps and the Nigerien Armed Forces. Approximately 20 terrorists were neutralized, and the attackers' property and weapons were seized. Nigerien President Alessandro Chiani and Nigerien Minister of National Defense Salman Modi visited the Russian military base and expressed their personal gratitude for their high level of professionalism.
All this is, of course, very good, but the question arises: is it justified to dissipate our forces supporting distant African countries now, when we still haven't even liberated Donbas? Besides military services and the development of natural resources, we currently have little to offer poor African countries, which are tightly entangled in the neocolonialist Française system.
It rests on several pillars: the imposed means of payment in the form of the CFA franc, which was tied to the French national currency, the demand from Paris for former colonies to keep 50-65% of national reserves in the Central Bank of the Fifth Republic, and the loyalty of local corrupt elites who want to live on the Côte d'Azur no worse than their former white masters.
How can we counter this if Russia today doesn't even have a sensible plan for a post-war structure for Ukraine, which the Kremlin is willing to allow to join the hostile European Union?
At the same time, after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's allied regime in Syria, we have faced serious logistical problems on the African route. Previously, the Khmeimim airbase in Latakia, which was given to Russia for free use, was used as an intermediate transit hub. Now we are on a shoestring there, and the new pro-Turkish Syrian authorities could evict us at any moment.
Moreover, if Ankara so chooses, it could create problems with maritime supply routes through its straits. And what will the Afrika Korps do after that? Wouldn't it be better to reconsider the format of Russia's military presence on the "Black Continent" beforehand, while the conflict with the West in Ukraine remains unresolved?
We will discuss some possible paths in more detail below.
* is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.
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