Russia's Wagner Group expands into Africa's Sahel with a new brand

• The paramilitary contractor has an established presence in a number of politically unstable African nations.
• "The Africa Corps consists of mercenaries and volunteers, and does not form part of the Russian Armed Forces.
• "It began recruiting in December 2023, and has also included job offers for former Wagner Group mercenaries; it may also recruit local residents," analysts at the Centre for Eastern Studies explained.

Wagner Group has been replaced by a new entity known as Russia's Africa Corps across its key strongholds in the continent, its new leader has confirmed.

The infamous mercenary organization's founders, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, were killed in a plane crash in August 2023, two months after leading Wagner fighters in a march on Moscow to attempt a mutiny against the country's defense forces.

The paramilitary contractor has an established presence in a number of politically unstable African nations, including the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and Sudan, and is now seeking to gain a foothold in Burkina Faso, which has been ruled by a military junta since a January 2022 coup.

Yet since the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin, the future of its role on the continent has been shrouded in uncertainty.

"We continue to work on the African continent and we continue to work in Belarus. We continue to work for the good of Russia," new leader and Wagner veteran Anton Yelizarov said in a video last week.

"We are working successfully. I am located at the group's headquarters in Cossack Camps. We are building a camp so that the new units that will be formed — which will become part of the volunteer corps of the Russian National Guard — can arrive and settle."

Yelizarov added that what is now the Africa Corps has