RUSSIAN AND CHINESE INTERESTS IN AFRICA Russia’s view of Africa is largely instrumental and its activities there are self-serving. Moscow’s African goals revolve around reasserting its great-power status, countering Western influence, profiting from arms sales and security contracts, accessing natural resources, and gaining UN support for (or at least limiting UN condemnation of) its invasion of Ukraine. It has had at least moderate success in all of these areas. Russia’s great power status is an obsession of the Kremlin, and one generally shared by the Russian people. Public opinion polls consistently show the Russian people perceive their country’s great power status as an important goal, and the number of Russians who believe their country is a great power has risen five-fold since 2013. Moscow’s diplomatic, military, and economic presence in Africa serves the goal of building its great power identity, especially when it can erode Western influence and undermine Western interests in the process. It has especially focused on doing so in the Sahel, by leveraging dissatisfaction with Western peacekeeping/counter-terrorism missions and the conditionality that comes with Western assistance. In Mali, Burkina-Faso, Niger, and the Central African Republic, Russia has replaced international military forces, after convincing local governments that Russian Africa Corps forces would be a more effective and less intrusive partner. While this has allowed Moscow to raise its military profile in Africa at the expense of the West, it has incurred more losses than gains for its efforts. Mali provides a case in point here. Although it was “advertised as a flagship for Russia’s Africa strategy”, Mali has proven to be inhospitable ground for Russian mercenaries, who suffered a total military defeat to Touareg separatist forces in July 2024, and more recently were unable to prevent a move toward Mali’s capital by an al-Qaeda affiliate known as JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al- Islam wal-Muslimin). But Africa Corps deployments to Africa serve more than military and reputational goals for the Kremlin. Where Moscow’s mercenaries go in Africa, resource extraction often follows. The goal is twofold: gaining resources for Russia and “dislodging Western companies from an area of strategic importance.” In every country in which they operate, Russian mercenaries “have secured valuable natural resources using these to not only cover costs, but also extract significant revenue.” Russia extracted some $2.5 billion worth of gold from Africa between 2022 and 2024 alone. Whether Russia will continue to accept military losses for economic gains is unclear, but what is clear is that Africa Corps deployments serve multiple purposes for the Kremlin. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
// RUSSIA AND CHINA IN AFRICA Delphi Global Research Center
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