September 19, 2025
Hanna Notte, PhD
Executive Summary
Key takeaways
(1) The emergence of Africa Corps. Over the past two years, Africa Corps has taken over most of the Wagner Group’s former Africa operations, elevating them to the level of official state-to-state relations. The new entity emerged after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny in late June 2023, with the Russia-Africa summit a month later a key catalyst.
(2) Focus on the Sahel. Unlike in Libya, Africa Corps’ takeover from the Wagner Group in Mali was marked by hiccups, and the two entities coexisted there somewhat uneasily until recently. Africa Corps embraced new openings in the Sahel, deploying to Burkina Faso and Niger, as well as more recently to Equatorial Guinea. In consolidating its presence in the Sahel, Russia both benefited from and actively encouraged the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States and a deepening and widening of joint activities among the three Sahelian juntas.
(3) Wagner in the Central African Republic. In the Central African Republic (CAR), Wagner Group fighters did not sign new contracts with the Russian defense ministry, and the group has continued to operate as Wagner. It remains to be seen whether, and for how long, Wagner can resist the defense ministry’s usurpation of its CAR operations, especially after the formal end to Wagner operations in Mali in early June 2025.
(4) Wagner, rebranded. Africa Corps’ emergence appears to have been largely a bureaucratic restructuring and rebranding exercise. The new entity gobbled up many former Wagner fighters and usurped much of the group’s recruitment infrastructure. The Russian military tethered the new entity closer to the military’s chain of command, but seems to not have created any new units for the corps. While the entity’s recruitment campaigns are highly visible, replete with detail on deployment requirements, salary, and benefits, little is known from open sources about its command and manpower.
(5) Less nimble and less risk-prone. Africa Corps has thus far prioritized training and routine security assistance for its host countries, compared to the high-risk missions the Wagner Group used to undertake. For its funding, Africa Corps currently appears to rely on Russia’s state budget. In the future, it will likely seek more diverse sources of funding and may even allow new “mini-Prigozhins” to spring up, to engage in profitable business activities to generate funding.
(6) A sustainable model? Though worst-case expectations about the fate of Russia’s Syrian bases—namely, that Russia would be ousted from them—did not come to pass after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Russia appears to be engaged in efforts to diversify its military logistics to ensure the sustainability of its Africa operations. Should Africa Corps continue to eschew the types of higher-risk missions that Wagner used to undertake, it might face growing competition from other players, such as China, Iran, and Turkey. It also remains to be seen to what extent Africa Corps will make inroads into Togo, Benin, and a number of other potential target countries.
