In early July 2026, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, met his counterparts from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in Niamey.
The report indicates that in early July 2026, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, met his counterparts from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in Niamey. Their communiqué welcomed Russian military support, including help for the Alliance of Sahel States’ new Unified Force. Only weeks earlier, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the al-Qaeda-aligned coalition, had attacked Niamey’s international airport and the adjoining military complex, which also hosts the force’s headquarters. Niger stated 11 soldiers and two civilians were killed.
It further notes that the sequence captured the Central Sahel’s security paradox. Three military governments have removed French troops, dismantled much of their Western security cooperation, left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and brought Russia into a far larger role. They have gained the freedom to reject former partners and build new institutions. Yet a change in uniforms, suppliers and diplomatic language is not the same as a change in security outcomes.
This breakaway order joins counter-insurgency with freedom from French influence, collective protection for military-led states and regional leadership outside ECOWAS. It has created room for Sahelian choice. So far, it has strengthened government control over foreign and defence policy more clearly than it has protected civilians, restored territory or rebuilt accountable civilian rule.
The coups followed a shared political logic. Mali’s armed forces removed President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in August 2020, then Colonel Assimi Goïta, now a General, seized authority again in May 2021. Burkina Faso experienced two coups in 2022, first in January and then in September, when Captain Ibrahim Traoré displaced Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. In Niger, General Abdourahamane Tchiani overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum in July 2023.
Each takeover drew legitimacy from the same indictment: elected leaders, foreign troops and regional institutions had failed to stop jihadist expansion. ECOWAS answered Niger’s coup with sanctions and a threat of force, then lifted its main sanctions in February 2024. The three juntas framed the confrontation as a shared grievance.
The indictment resonated because the old arrangement had been extensive. France launched Operation Serval in Mali in January 2013, helping retake northern towns from jihadist groups. Its successor, Operation Barkhane, spread across the region and had 5,100 French personnel by mid-2021. European special forces served through Task Force Takuba, and the European Union trained Malian forces. The United States based surveillance drones at Air Base 201 near Agadez, a facility that cost more than $100 million, and maintained close to 1,000 personnel in Niger. The UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA, deployed close to 13,000 peacekeepers before its closure.
This architecture won battles and supplied intelligence, transport and finance that Sahelian armies lacked. It failed to establish durable state authority or public confidence. Mobile targeting coexisted with weak administration, abusive forces, local disputes and exclusion. MINUSMA had a stabilisation and protection mandate, not Barkhane’s combat mission, but public debate often conflated them into a single failing foreign presence. France’s colonial history, civilian harm, disputed choices and seemingly permanent bases gave anti-French politics firm local roots. Russian information campaigns circulated and amplified anti-French claims; they do not account for the anger’s local origins.
The departures then came in quick succession. France completed its withdrawal from Mali in August 2022, ended its operation in Burkina Faso in February 2023 and withdrew its last troops from Niger in December 2023. Mali requested MINUSMA’s termination; the mission closed by the end of 2023. The EU training mission in Mali ended in May 2024. The final US troops left Niger later that year.
The replacement institution began with the Liptako-Gourma Charter of 16 September 2023. It created the Alliance of Sahel States, formerly the French Alliance des États du Sahel and known by the initials AES, based on mutual defence: an attack on one member’s sovereignty or territory would require assistance from the others. In July 2024, the three leaders created the Confederation of Sahel States, or Confederation AES, with ambitions for coordinated defence and foreign policy. They formally ceased to be members of ECOWAS on 29 January 2025.
The AES is now more than protest diplomacy. A force announced at 5,000 troops in January 2025 was launched as the Unified Force in December, with headquarters in Niamey and a stated strength of 6,000 for 2026. Members have agreed to a 0.5 per cent levy on imports from outside the confederation to support common projects. Some cross-border operations have taken place. Public evidence still does not show that the force has 6,000 deployable troops, a tested common command, dependable air support or the intelligence network needed to match its declared mission.
That gap recalls the former G5 Sahel Joint Force, created in 2017 by the three AES countries, Chad and Mauritania. It conducted 25 operations but suffered from uncertain financing, uneven command, limited aircraft and weak intelligence. The AES has firmer political cohesion and a narrower membership. It also inherits many of the same material constraints while losing access to several Western and multilateral support systems.
Russia’s role differs across the three states. Mali formed the deepest combat partnership. Wagner personnel arrived in late 2021, supporting Malian operations, training forces and supplying regime protection. Burkina Faso and Niger developed Russian ties later, with smaller contingents centred more on training, equipment and protection. All three have also bought or sought equipment from Türkiye, China, Iran and other suppliers. The new order is Russia-centred in key areas, but it is not a closed Moscow bloc.
Wagner’s record in Mali combined battlefield support with grave allegations of abuse. A UN investigation found strong indications that Malian troops and foreign military personnel killed more than 500 people during an operation in Moura in March 2022. Mali rejected that account. After Wagner announced its departure in June 2025, Africa Corps remained.
That was an organisational transfer, not a Russian exit. Africa Corps was established with support from the Russian Defence Ministry after the 2023 Wagner mutiny, bringing the partnership closer to formal state command. Former Wagner personnel reportedly supplied much of its workforce. The shift makes it harder to distance Russian state responsibility from conduct on the ground.
