Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has failed in Mali, says The Sentry

Wagner, the controversial and feared Russian mercenary/private security company, has been a failure in Mali, and civilian casualties have increased since it replaced French forces there in 2022 to help the country’s military junta fight terrorists and separatists, according to a new report.

The investigation by The Sentry, a US-based investigative organisation that tracks corruption and violent kleptocracy, has concluded that Wagner has been unable to take control of large areas of Mali where armed terrorist and separatist groups are challenging the authority of the Malian military, which seized power from an elected government in a coup in 2020.

The report, Mercenary Meltdown: The Wagner Group's Failure in Mali, says the increase in civilian attacks and casualties since Wagner arrived has severely undermined relations between the Malian military and the Malian public.

“Faced with challenges such as insufficient air support, a lack of trust, and a lack of reliable information from informants, the Wagner Group has become more reactive and violent — allowing the very terrorist groups they were hired to neutralize to gain more control and increase recruitment in Mali,” it says.

The report notes that 3½ years after Wagner arrived in Mali in 2022, it has just announced its withdrawal from the country, to be replaced by the Russian state force called Africa Corps. The latter has been steadily taking over all of Wagner’s operations since its founder and director, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched an abortive mutiny against the Russian military in Ukraine in June 2023, and died in a suspicious air crash near Moscow in August of that year.

Wagner announced its departure from Mali with the boast “Mission Accomplished”. But the report notes that, since the number of Wagner fighters in Mali will remain roughly the same, as many had already signed contracts with the Russian state before the announcement, “The group’s claim to success — and their overall strategy in Mali — merits scrutiny.”

Justyna Gudzowska, the executive director of The Sentry, writes: “As Moscow spreads its tentacles across the Sahel and rebrands its operations under the Africa Corps umbrella, it is critical to understand that its predecessor — the Wagner Group — was not the infallible fighting force and successful economic actor it pretended to be. If anything, the Malian example illustrates that the group failed on both fronts, and this should be a warning to other African clients who are considering bringing in the [Russian] Ministry of Defence-backed Africa Corps.”

That warning is clearly directed mainly to Niger and Burkina Faso, the two other Sahelian states that were also recently taken over by military juntas and have expelled Western governments and established close ties with Moscow.

However, they have not finalised any security arrangements with Russia or Wagner.

Apart from failing to take control of the central and northern areas of Mali, where armed terrorist and separatist groups have long challenged the authority of the state, Wagner has been unable to compete with Islamic State-Sahel in the far eastern province of Ménaka; and in the southern and western regions it struggles to maintain a continuous presence, undermining its own counterterrorism strategy, says the report.

Ambushed

After some initial victories against the insurgents as it pushed north, Wagner’s failings were dramatically illustrated in late July 2024, when a convoy of about 30 vehicles carrying Wagner fighters and Malian government soldiers was ambushed by insurgents about 10km before the village of Tinzaouatène.

The insurgents were members of the Cadre Stratégique Permanent pour la Défense du Peuple de l’Azawad (Strategic Permanent Framework for the Defence of the People of Azawad, or CSP-DPA) and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen (Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, or JNIM), an al-Qaeda offshoot in the Sahel.

A sandstorm prevented the Malian military and Wagner from deploying even the little air cover they had, and they were decisively beaten in the battle. Though reliable figures are impossible to establish, the insurgents claimed to have killed 84 Russian mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers.

“The loss was a blow to Wagner’s reputation on the African continent that, more than a year later, they have yet to recover from,” writes The Sentry.

Though the report says Wagner was already prone to the use of indiscriminate violence against civilians — including the widespread use of booby traps, sometimes attached to toys — its response to defeats like Tinzaouatène has been to become even more violent and indiscriminate.

Already in late March 2022, the notorious massacre at the town of Moura exemplified what Wagner was capable of. Its fighters and Malian government soldiers besieged and then looted Moura, executing hundreds of people, says the report.

“At least 500 individuals were unlawfully executed … and at least 58 women and girls were subjected to sexual violence.”

The report also recalls that the Malian Ministry of Defence completely denied the atrocity, insisting all the victims were “terrorists”.

The report says that some regular soldiers had complained to a Malian journalist that the Moura massacre “was due to the influence of Russian mercenaries on their superiors”. The Sentry notes that the Malian army has also become more brutal towards civilians since Wagner arrived.

Intel dries up

“Wagner fighters have also been reported to have engaged in sexual violence and mass executions, as evidenced by the Moura massacre in March 2022,” says The Sentry.

Because of such extreme violence against locals, Wagner’s vital intelligence from informants has dried up, further frustrating its fight against insurgents.

The report concludes that Wagner’s presence in Mali has strengthened rather than neutralised terrorist groups such as JNIM, forcing it to employ more remote and indiscriminate violence such as ambushes, drone-delivered explosions, suicide car bombs, landmines, artillery and improvised explosive devices.

And Wagner’s offensive in the north is bringing northern rebels from the CSP-DPA closer to JNIM militants.

The report says Wagner’s tactics include besieging cities and towns in the north, “essentially creating open-air prisons”.

It says Wagner’s attempts to recruit ethnic militias such as the Dozo have backfired, sparking even more vicious attacks by JNIM on civilians of Dozo ethnicity.

It says Wagner has sown fear, division and resentment within the junta and the Malian military. This is because of Wagner’s racist behaviour towards local soldiers and its actions outside of the Malian military command, including using military equipment without permission and conducting military operations without military approval.

The Malian military also resents Wagner’s blatantly mercenary attitude. The report details how several times Wagner troops refused to go to the defence of Malian soldiers under attack unless they were paid upfront for the individual missions.

The report says the Malian military regards Wagner as unprofessional, recalling how the organisation’s founder had recruited many of its fighters from prison in exchange for their freedom.

One high-ranking official told The Sentry that Wagner operatives “are worse than the French … we have gone from the frying pan to the fire.”

Malian forces also expressed discontent with the preferential treatment afforded to Wagner fighters by the military junta and their commanding officers, saying that wounded Wagner fighters are typically given first place on medical evacuation flights.

Poor intelligence

Conversely, Wagner fighters have lamented their Malian partners’ lack of collaboration and blame them for the Tinzaouatène defeat because, they said, the Malian army had given them poor intelligence, particularly about the strength of the enemy.

All of these factors have created a level of mistrust and non-communication between Wagner and the Malian military that has further bedevilled the fight against the insurgents.

The report finds the tensions rise right up into the junta itself as Wagner is closest to Defence Minister Sadio Camara, and so Mali’s leader, Colonel Assimi Goïta, feels threatened by the Russians.

Charles Cater, director of investigations at The Sentry, said Wagner’s intervention in Mali had been a failure because “heavy-handed and poorly informed counterterrorism operations have strengthened alliances among armed groups challenging the state, caused substantial battlefield losses for Wagner, and resulted in higher civilian casualties.

“Wagner’s presence has also increased political fragmentation and tensions within the junta that hired them, while coming at an unsustainably high economic cost. Ultimately, Wagner’s deployment has not served the interests of the people of Mali, the military government, or even the mercenary group itself.”

How — and how much — Wagner is paid by Mali is something of a mystery, and another source of tensions within the top echelons of the junta and of the military, notes the report.

It says that in 2021 it was reported that Mali would pay the Wagner Group about six billion CFA francs (almost $11-million) per month.

However, this was unaffordable for a very poor country, and so the junta’s payments to Wagner were discontinued briefly during mid-2022 and then seem to have been reduced from the initial $11-million — even though Wagner continued to maintain at least 2,000 combatants and possibly as many as 4,000, says the report.

The junta is almost entirely reliant on foreign mining companies for revenue, mainly gold, of which the majors are the Canadian companies Barrick Gold Corporation, B2Gold and Allied Gold Corporation, and Australia’s Resolute Mining Limited. The junta has been progressively squeezing them for more revenue, and the report says they may be indirectly contributing to Wagner’s payroll.

Natural resources

It also speculates that Moscow may be paying Wagner directly in the hope of eventually getting a stake in the country’s natural resources, probably gold or lithium.

“But early indications suggest that Mali is not going to part with its natural resources so easily,” adds the report, describing how the junta has fended off all attempts by Wagner to seize mines and other natural resources.

“Bamako is not Bangui,” notes the report, contrasting Mali with Wagner’s successful seizure of vast natural resources in the Central African Republic, where it has effectively captured the state.

Wagner’s failures in Mali contain lessons not only for other Sahelian juntas who might be hiring the Russians, but also for Western states, says the report.

Oliver Windridge, the senior adviser for the UK and EU at The Sentry, said, “So far, the European Union and its member states have been reacting with alarm to the spectre of Russia’s encroachment into the Sahel and other African countries. But the European Union may be operating on an outdated understanding of Wagner’s strength and tactics.

“As the cracks in Wagner’s operations have been revealed, alternative options may also be emerging for Brussels, London and Washington to exert influence with Sahelian leaders toward better outcomes for their countries.”

The report’s key recommendations are that;

• The Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) should open an investigation into war crimes perpetrated by Wagner troops in Mali and prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses. Alternatively, the United Nations Security Council should refer Wagner abuses in Mali to the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC.
• The government of Mali should take steps toward criminal accountability and reparations for the victims of massacres such as Moura, as well as for the abuses against and displacement of civilian populations following attacks by the Wagner Group in the north and west of the country.
• The EU, the US, the UK, Canada and Australia should investigate and, if appropriate, designate for sanctions the network of individuals and entities in Sadio Camara’s inner circle who enable, support, or benefit from Wagner’s presence in the country, as well as those involved in corruption and human rights abuses. They should coordinate sanctions to increase their impact.
• The international mining companies should conduct comprehensive audits of their operations to ensure that they are not conducting business with sanctioned Wagner Group entities or individuals, such as Ivan Maslov.
• The Algerian government should facilitate renewed negotiations on a peace agreement between Bamako and the northern rebel groups. As the political and security landscape has changed since the 2015 agreement, which was facilitated by Algeria, new terms will need to be agreed upon.

Daily Maverick approached the Russian embassy in Pretoria for comment, but had received none by the time of publication. We were unable to reach Wagner separately. DM