On Saturday, an attempted coup in the West African nation of Niger was quelled, in part, thanks to mercenaries from Africa Corps, Russia’s successor to the notorious Wagner mercenary army.

Increasingly, these brutal mercenaries have become a powerful tool for Russian influence in the continent which could, in turn, give Vladimir Putin leverage over Europe.

In Niger, hundreds of army mutineers seized a base in the capital, Niamey, and fired on the presidential palace. Eyewitness accounts suggest that forces loyal to the ruling military junta were having trouble controlling them, until the Russians intervened, with armoured vehicles under cover of a Mi-24 helicopter gunship.

Across the impoverished Sahel region, seriously imperilled by both ethnic guerrillas and jihadist movements, Moscow has replaced the West as the security partner of choice.

Africa Corps is a successor to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary group. After his abortive march on Moscow in 2023 and far-from-mysterious death when his private jet exploded in the sky soon after taking off from the capital, his African contracts were transferred to this new body, controlled by Russian military intelligence.

Its new bosses may lack Prigozhin’s free-wheeling entrepreneurial instincts, but have the confidence of the Kremlin. Their mission is to maintain Wagner’s momentum and use Africa Corps to project Russian influence across Africa.

The Russian mercenaries have not always been successful. In one of Wagner’s earlier deployments, to Mozambique in 2019, a combination of over-confidence and a lack of experience in jungle warfare left them vulnerable to a series of lethal ambushes. They quickly pulled out, tails between their legs.

In Mali, the Russians spearheaded the recapture of the strategic northern city of Kidal in 2023. This year, they were forced to abandon it to an alliance of al-Qaeda-linked jihadists and ethnic Tuareg rebels, leaving behind vehicles and supplies.

However, Africa Corps has a cadre of combat-experienced veterans and is willing to support regimes of questionable legitimacy and morality. As a human rights worker who has spent a decade in Africa told The i Paper: “Western governments are as willing as Moscow to get into bed with all kinds of nasty regimes, but are also sensitive to public opinion, the courts, and so on. The Russians can just get down to business.”

In Mali, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Niger, they moved in after the French pulled out, either because of decisions made in Paris, or because the local regimes severed long-standing ties.

There are also Africa Corps deployments in Sudan, Libya and Equatorial Guinea, with claims also of a force in Togo. Sometimes, they are engaged in combat operations, and sometimes they are training local troops, but in every case they are also committed to protecting the existing regimes – by whatever means necessary. Africa Corps has been implicated in the torture and execution of suspected rebel sympathisers, looting and indiscriminate attacks on civilian settlements.

In total, Africa Corps deploys fewer than 6,000 Russian mercenaries across the continent, a relatively trivial commitment for a country suffering that many casualties in under a week’s fighting in Ukraine.

They have, however, a disproportionate benefit to Moscow. While most of what host governments pay for Africa Corps’ services go into covering costs (or, one suspects, various officers’ and officials’ pockets), at least some is then used for sanctions-busting operations.

Above all, it wins political influence. Russia still has wide and deep relationships in the Global South. There, it has been able to capitalise on both anti-Western feelings and also its value as a trading partner. Indeed, the US sanctions regime – which threatens them with punishment if they don’t do what Washington tell them – smacks of economic imperialism.

These countries have votes in the United Nations General Assembly. They can turn a blind eye to sanctions-defying trade and financial flows. They are held up in Russia’s domestic propaganda as proof that Western attempts at isolating Moscow diplomatically are failing. They have resources from Niger’s uranium to the CAR’s gold which can be exploited.

The simple presence of Russian troops in Africa is also an irritant for Europe (notably France, as it sees Africa Corps move in where its forces have retreated). Beyond that, Moscow’s hope is that they may provide it with bargaining chips for future negotiations.

One of the probable reasons for its continued presence in Libya, for example, where it is supporting one side in the long-running civil war, is not just that victory might allow Moscow to acquire new bases in the Mediterranean. It is also that control of Libya’s ports would allow Moscow to be able to control migrant flows into Southern Europe, able to promise to turn the taps off – or threaten to open them fully.

For Moscow, after all, sees itself as engaged in a struggle with the West that is being fought on a global battlefield. Africa may represent a lesser front, but is nonetheless one it feels the West has neglected.