Wagner rout in Mali puts Russia on an African backfoot

While Russia’s army is bogged down in Ukraine, its mercenaries are faring no better in Africa.

In late July 2024, mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Moscow-aligned private military company, accompanied the Malian army in what the Malian regime called a “stabilization operation” in the West African country’s northeastern town of Tinzaouaten, near the Algerian border.

That mission quickly went sideways when fighting broke out between that coalition and rebels from the Permanent Strategic Framework, an ethnically Tuareg separatist group. In retreat, Wagner and Malian forces were ambushed by militants from the al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM.

Upward of 80 Wagner personnel and over 40 Malian soldiers were reportedly killed in the fighting. Among the casualties was Nikita Fedyanin, who ran Wagner’s popular Telegram channel The Grey Zone.

While Tuareg rebels and JNIM were quick to celebrate their success, Mali and Wagner sought to downplay their losses.

And understandably so. The defeat in Tinzaouaten puts both the Wagner Group and Russia in a bind. It signals to African leaders the limits of having Moscow-backed mercenaries as a counterterrorism partner and regime protector, especially in a complex security environment such as Mali’s. But it also challenges Moscow’s strategy on the continent.

Since the death of Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in August 2023, Moscow has tried to take over the group’s operations by establishing the Africa Corps, a Ministry of Defense-controlled project designed to resemble Wagner. That project aims to bring Wagner fighters directly under the command and control of the Russian state.

But this has proven more challenging than Moscow anticipated and has