Russia’s war against Ukraine is increasingly being contested in Africa, where Ukraine has begun targeting Russian networks far beyond the European battlefield. The operations are limited in scale but strategically focused, aimed at disrupting the infrastructure Moscow relies on to sustain its war effort and pressure NATO’s southern flank.
Kyiv shared intelligence and coordinated with local groups in Mali in 2024 to help inflict significant losses on Russian mercenary forces. In Sudan, Ukrainian-linked Tymur special forces operators conducted covert strikes against Kremlin-aligned networks tied to gold extraction and logistics, reflecting a clear understanding of where Moscow is most exposed.
Ukraine has also been striking Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Mediterranean, beginning in late 2025 and expanding operations in 2026, with Libya reportedly being a launch point.
Ukraine is not attempting to replicate Russia’s neo-colonial model in Africa or establish a sustained presence on the continent, but is executing a low-footprint campaign aimed at disrupting key elements of the Kremlin’s global network.
By targeting personnel, financial flows, and logistical infrastructure, Kyiv is forcing Moscow to protect a dispersed and exposed system that was not designed to withstand sustained pressure. It has introduced friction into a network that has historically functioned with minimal resistance.
Russia must now defend not only its front lines in Ukraine, but also the external architecture that sustains its war effort. Losses in Mali degrade its ability to provide lucrative regime security in the Sahel, while disruption in Sudan constrains financial pipelines that support ongoing operations.
Since killing Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023, Putin has consolidated Russia’s African footprint under the state-controlled Africa Corps, replacing Wagner’s semi-autonomous model with a more centralized structure. The mission has remained the same as Moscow secures regimes, extracts resources, and expands influence in regions where Western engagement has receded.
In Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic, Russian forces have embedded themselves in fragile political systems, resulting in controlled instability under which governments are stabilized at the leadership level, but the broader security environment deteriorates.
Insurgencies expand, governance weakens, and violence persists. This is not a by-product of Moscow’s mission; it is the strategy.
Russia’s actions in Africa are “frequently destabilizing” and part of a broader competition in which major powers now see their “futures running through the continent,” according to General Dagvin Anderson, commander of US Africa Command.
Chronic instability locks regimes into dependence on Moscow while limiting opportunities for Western re-entry. It also produces second-order effects that move north toward Europe.
Insecurity in the Sahel feeds extremist activity, governance collapse, and migration flows along Europe’s southern periphery. As Western forces have withdrawn, Russia has filled the vacuum with low-cost paramilitary deployments and transactional security arrangements.
The region is now less stable, less governed, and less accessible to the West, while becoming more politically aligned with Moscow.
At the same time, Russia is positioning forces and infrastructure across Africa that could be used as a southern springboard for military and proxy operations against Europe.
In Libya, Russian forces maintain access to airbases that provide reach into the central Mediterranean. In Sudan, Moscow is pursuing a naval foothold on the Red Sea, which would offer access to critical maritime routes.
These positions form a distributed access network capable of supporting logistics, intelligence collection, and proxy operations in a future crisis.
Russia’s African operations also help sustain its war effort. Gold and other commodities extracted through opaque arrangements in Sudan, Mali, and the Central African Republic are routed through illicit trade systems in the UAE, bypassing sanctions and contributing to Russia’s financial resilience.
Taken together, instability, access, and revenue form a pressure system directed at NATO’s southern flank. They also constitute a form of strategic depth as Africa provides Russia with resources, operational flexibility, and leverage outside the European theater.
The implications for NATO are significant. The alliance has long struggled to manage instability along its southern flank.
By imposing costs on the infrastructure that drives migration pressure, maritime risk, and political instability, Kyiv is shaping the security environment in regions where NATO has limited presence and limited appetite to engage directly.
Ukraine is extending the defense of Europe beyond its own borders by degrading the strategic depth Russia has built in Africa and constraining Moscow’s ability to sustain its war and use its network as an axis of pressure in a wider conflict with NATO.
If current trends hold, Ukraine’s campaign is likely to expand in both the maritime domain and across Africa, targeting the connective tissue of Russia’s global network.
The longer the pressure is sustained, the more Russia will be forced to divert resources away from the front in Ukraine to defend its strategic depth abroad, compounding strain across its multiple theaters.
Michael Albanese is an American defense contractor based in Kyiv, where he works as the Special Projects Lead for Picogrid. Previously, he worked at both the Atlantic Council and the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
War Without End: Deterring Russia’s Shadow War
Either Europe will continue allowing Russia’s shadow war to set the terms of escalation, or it will act now to prevent a larger war.
CEPA Forum 2025
Explore CEPA’s flagship event.
