06-08-2025
US and Russia Are Competing for Influence in Africa
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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Russia and the United States are vying for influence in West Africa, where Moscow has strengthened its partnerships and is looking to expand, according to a think tank report.
Analysis by the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) outlined how Russia is filling a vacuum left by former colonizers, France and capitalizing on recent conflicts and autocratic regimes that mirror Moscow's.
Russia has strengthened partnerships with the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, and is now looking to the coastal country of Togo for Atlantic port access to aid its logistics network from its landlocked allies, the CTP said.
But this greater Russian influence in Togo threatens the U.S. partnership with the country, which, along with its neighbors, is looking to do deals with both Moscow and Washington.
"Russia is a very opportunistic actor and it will supplant Western presence and influence in any way that it can," Liam Karr, Africa team lead for the Critical Threats Project, told Newsweek.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Newsweek "we are concerned that Russia's reckless and extractive actions in the Sahel have harmed civilians and exacerbated local grievances which drive terrorist recruitment.
"We urge all countries to avoid transactions with Russia's defense sector," the statement added. Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Associated Press/Canva
Russia's Africa Corps
Moscow's footprint in Africa had been stamped by the private military company the Wagner Group and reconfigured since the death of its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in 2023 through Russia's Africa Corps.
The CTP said Russian defense officials are likely to try expanding Moscow's presence in Niger, where Moscow has done deals on nuclear cooperation and mining of uranium and lithium. Mineral resource deals between Moscow and Mali have also been agreed.
The Africa Corps has around 2,000 personnel in Mali and around 200 in Burkina Faso, but has had problems with recruitment since it was established, partly due to Russia's bandwidth being stretched in Ukraine, Karr said.
However, the end of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which the Trump administration is committed to, could result in Moscow sending troops from Ukraine to West Africa, consolidating its presence there. This is because the Kremlin will have to figure out what to do with hundreds of thousands of troops whose return to Russia may pose domestic problems.
"If there were to be peace in Ukraine tomorrow, Russia is going to have hundreds of thousands of troops to demobilize," Karr said, "bringing them home is probably not the most straightforward solution for the Kremlin."
Incidents of violence and crime among returned Russian soldiers have spiked, and frontline accounts from the war in Ukraine, which are unvarnished by Kremlin propaganda, could also raise the risk of unrest.
"An easy pivot option for them would be to deploy more of these forces to Africa," said Karr. "It would more, on the open, more capacity for Russia to focus on Africa."
From Guinea to Togo
Russia had relied on port access via Conakry, Guinea, for large military equipment shipments to the Sahel. It now has a deal with Togo, with which Russia ratified a military cooperation agreement on July 22, and this will facilitate joint military exercises, training and weapons and equipment exchange.
Moscow likely wants Togo to join the AES to counter Western influence in the region and might want to use the West African country to project naval power in the Atlantic Ocean, threatening the U.S. and NATO's flank, the OTP report said.
Moscow also threatens the U.S. partnership with Togo, which American military officials have described as "essential" given their joint military operations related to counterterrorism and maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea.
The feeling is reciprocated with Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey last month calling for greater defense and security cooperation with Washington. Benin's army chief of staff also expressed a similar sentiment in April.
This year, the U.S. has tried to reengage the AES with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Will Stevens meeting regional officials.
In May, the U.S. ambassador to Niger, Kathleen FitzGibbon, presented her credentials to junta leader Abdourahamane Tiani for the first time since he took power in 2023. The U.S. handed over bases in the cities of Agadez and near Niamey in September 2024.
"In the short term, Russia is trying to fill the void left by the U.S.," Olayinka Ajala, an expert on West Africa and associate professor in politics and international relations at Leeds Beckett University, told Newsweek.
But West Africa and the continent as a whole "is a medium to long-term plan for Russia," he said.
Having ramped up military industrial capacity to its highest level due to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia is preparing for life after war.
"When the war ends, they will need places to send these weapons to ad countries to sell weapons to, and they are laying the foundations for that now," Ajala said.
Russia has an advantage over the U.S. in the region, given American laws that restrict defense aid to Sahel states with poor democratic and human rights records.
A demonstrator holds a Russian flag in Bangui, Central African Republic, on March 22, 2023.
A demonstrator holds a Russian flag in Bangui, Central African Republic, on March 22, U.S. State Department said that Washington was engaging with Sahelian and littoral West African countries with "a pragmatic approach that focuses on advancing our foreign policy priorities." This included strategic counterterrorism priorities to mitigate threats to U.S. personnel and interests.
"The United States will continue to strategically engage with governments in the region on counterterrorism efforts that advance American interests," the statement to Newsweek added.
As the U.S. tries to exert influence in the region, Moscow is likely to undermine these efforts through information campaigns and rallying pro-Russian civil society members such as it did recently in the Central African Republic (CAR).
"A lot of these countries, rightfully so, believe that they can have partnerships with both Russia and the U.S.," said Karr. "The U.S. can go toe-to-toe [with Russia] and has a lot more to offer."
In Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the Russian presence is more entrenched than the U.S. presence, while in coastal West Africa, the U.S. has been partners with these countries for much longer, said Karr.
"These countries will be looking to balance between the two sides and get the best deals," he said.
