John Lechner & Sergey Eledinov
After a whirlwind two-year expansion into the Sahel, 2024 saw a number of setbacks for Russian military operations.
The Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group’s routing in Tinzaouaten laid bare issues of command and control after a half-handover of operations from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s PMC to the Ministry of Defense (MoD). The fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December then called into question the future of Russia’s eastern Mediterranean port in Tartus and its critical airbase at Khmeimim, all against a backdrop of a grinding third year of war in Ukraine.
These developments have led some analysts to believe Russia’s influence and ability to project power in the Sahel is waning, or that the Kremlin no longer considers the Sahel and other friendly states in Africa a priority. And indeed, there are members of Russia’s military, political, and expert communities pushing to scale back Moscow’s presence on the continent, or to use Africa as a bargaining chip in any potential negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Based on conversations with Russian officers, experts, and members of the PMC community, a retreat from the Sahel, and Africa more generally, still appears unlikely. Rumor and speculation on future strategies are rife, but it is becoming clear that, after several years of expansion, Russian operations in Africa are recalibrating to better match capacity.
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