Africa File, April 3, 2025: Russia-Sahel Summit; Sahelian Juntas Target Chinese Mining; M23 Loses Walikale But Uganda Leaves Vacuum in North Kivu

Africa File, April 3, 2025: Russia-Sahel Summit; Sahelian Juntas Target Chinese Mining; M23 Loses Walikale But Uganda Leaves Vacuum in North Kivu

Authors: Liam Karr, Yale Ford, Jean-Philip Banane

Contributors: Nick Markiewicz

Data Cutoff: April 3, 2025, at 10 a.m.

The Africa File provides regular analysis and assessments of major developments regarding state and nonstate actors’ activities in Africa that undermine regional stability and threaten US personnel and interests.

Key Takeaways:

• Russia. The Kremlin is strengthening its strategic relationships with Sahelian juntas to entrench Russian influence in the region and secure its interests in Africa at the expense of the West. The Alliance of Sahel States (AES)—comprising Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—enables the Kremlin to advance its goals of supplanting Western influence in Africa, asserting itself as a revitalized great power, and creating opportunities to threaten the southern NATO flank.
• Sahel. The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) juntas targeted China in their pro-sovereignty pressure campaign on international mining, marking an expansion of the campaign beyond just Western companies. The juntas’ actions indicate that they seek better terms in all mining contracts, not just those with the West. The AES efforts come as other African countries have sought to renegotiate lopsided mining deals with China in recent years.
• Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Congolese army (FARDC) and allied militias recaptured the district capital Walikale town in western North Kivu, which—if it holds—will be a blow to M23’s leverage entering Qatari-mediated negotiations with the Congolese government scheduled for April 9. The setback is M23’s first retreat from a significant population center since its major offensive in January 2025 and may indicate that M23 is facing capacity and supply challenges. M23 may have opportunities to advance along another axis in northern North Kivu, however, as the Ugandan army (UPDF) is considering redeploying its forces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo from North Kivu province further north to Ituri province. Uganda’s potential redeployment to Ituri likely is calculated at least partially to support ongoing UPDF operations against another rebel group—Coopérative pour le développement du Congo (CODECO)—that operates in northwest Ituri.

Assessments:

Russia

Russia is consolidating its strategic relationships with the Sahelian juntas to entrench itself in the region. The foreign ministers from the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)—Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov on April 3 and 4 as part of the first sessions of “AES-Russia consultations.”[1] A joint AES statement announced that the meeting aims to establish strategic relations in areas of common interest.[2]

Russia has increased its military footprint in Mali and Niger in 2025, as it expands the Russian Defense Ministry–controlled Africa Corps. Large convoys of Russian-sourced military supplies have entered Mali via Guinea in 2025.[3] This buildup is likely part of the Kremlin’s effort to consolidate control of the Russian military presence in Mali under the Africa Corps.[4] Russian Deputy Defense Minister and de facto Africa Corps head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov met with Malian junta leader Assimi Goita and Malian Defense Minister Sadio Camara during a visit to Mali in March 2025.[5] A Russian Air Force Tupolev Tu-154M that has previously transported mercenaries flew from Libya to Agadez airbase, northern Niger, on March 25.[6] The flight was likely transporting a combination of Russian Africa Corps and Syrian soldiers from the deposed Bashar al Assad regime. Local researchers claimed that 37 Russians and nearly 200 Syrian soldiers arrived at the uranium mining town Arlit, over 125 miles north, on March 27.[7] Hundreds of US service members were previously stationed at Agadez as part of a $110 million drone base before they withdrew from Niger at the request of the Nigerien junta in 2024.[8]

The AES is a strategic project for Russia that advances its goals to supplant Western influence in Africa and assert itself as a revitalized great power. The juntas announced the alliance shortly after meeting with Yevkurov in September 2023, presumably securing the Kremlin’s blessing from its inception.[9] The joint visit marks another step in the bloc’s efforts to form a true multi-sectoral confederation that aims to coordinate diplomatic, economic, and military policies. The three regimes had already broadly coordinated their diplomatic activity in line with their anti-Western outlooks and emphasized the need to speak with “one voice,” but the April Moscow visit is the bloc’s highest-ever level of joint diplomatic engagement with an external partner.[10] The AES states have coordinated other major efforts to integrate in the last year, such as a united passport, joint tariffs, and a joint force to address the Salafi-jihadi insurgency that has spread across all three countries.[11] Russia has conducted information operations and provided troops to bolster regime security and ensure the survival of all three juntas.[12]

Russia has supplanted the West in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger and formed a pro-Russian economic, military, and political bloc in the AES. The AES juntas have pressured Western mining companies across the Sahel while laying the groundwork for greater cooperation with Russia, which seeks access to gold, uranium, and other valuable natural resources in the region.[13] Russia has been the primary security partner for the AES since all three countries cut ties with Western forces. This shift effectively resulted in the withdrawal of at least 4,300 French, 1,000 American, and 10,000 UN troops and the arrival of rough...
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