The Erosion of Russia’s Influence in the Sahel
Russia’s PR campaign in the Sahel has not completely collapsed, but there is mounting and credible evidence that it is fraying under the weight of operational failures, civilian abuses, and unmet promises. While the narrative of anti-Western sentiment has been a key component of Russian strategy, the gap between this messaging and on-the-ground reality is becoming increasingly apparent.
Capitalizing on Anti-Western Sentiment
The anti-Western sentiment in the Sahel was not created by Russia—it simply capitalized on it. Young Africans, growing up with heavy foreign military presence, corrupt and illegitimate governments, and unfulfilled democratic promises were ready audiences for Russian foreign information and malicious interference. In such an environment, all Russia needed to do was build a sound anti-colonial narrative around which it could deploy its disinformation apparatus.
This approach was effective, including the use of AI-enhanced videos that lionized coup leaders such as Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré, thus creating a pro-Russian sentiment across the region and indeed, the wider African continent.
Operational Failures and Unmet Promises
Despite this, the gap between Russia’s PR and its on-the-ground performance has become evident. While Traoré was growing popular through AI-amplified propaganda, Islamist extremist groups now reportedly command half of Burkina Faso. This is similarly the case in Mali, where jihadist group JNIM has imposed a selective blockade of the capital Bamako since September 2025, burning fuel trucks.
Although the Malian Army with an estimated 1,000 Russia Africa Corps combatants secured some convoys, access to fuel had still not fully resumed in Bamako by early 2026. These developments demonstrate how Russia has failed to deliver the security guarantees it sold to junta regimes.
Obstruction of Regional Cooperation
Additionally, Russia has consistently declined to support, and in some cases even obstructed, meaningful security cooperation among Sahelian states. In 2024, Kremlin officials triumphantly cheered a decision by Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to withdraw from Ecowas and form the Alliance of Sahel States, but Moscow’s ensuing support has been short on actual resources and capability.
On the ground, Russia’s Africa-Corps mercenaries have been accused of committing gruesome abuses against local populations, including rape, torture, beheadings, mutilation, and summary executions, especially across northern Mali and the border with Mauritania. These actions, attributed to Russian-linked forces, have further alienated local communities from Russia’s presence.
Declining Popular Support
Popular support for military rule in the Sahel Alliance from Mali to Niger can only decline as these Russian-backed regimes fail to tame insurgencies that are their raison d’être, continue to perpetrate human rights abuses, and refuse to hold elections or return to civilian rule. Russian-backed regimes may also become new targets of the wave of Gen Z protests spreading on the continent.
Even before the fuel blockade in Mali, pro-democracy protests broke out in 2025, exposing the growing fecklessness of the Russian-backed junta. In the Central African Republic, thousands protested against President Touadera’s plans to run for a third presidential term with Wagner backing. Even Niger, once hailed as proof of Russia’s ascendancy after the junta expelled nearly a thousand US troops, terminated its intelligence partnerships with Moscow in 2025, citing the poor quality of their systems, a move considered as an indication that the regimes in the Sahel owe allegiance to no one in particular.
The Trump Administration’s New Approach
While the anti-Western narrative retains emotional resonance among young Africans, the operational credibility that was supposed to back up that narrative is eroding rapidly and will likely result in a form of ‘buyers remorse’ for Russia’s would-be allies in the Sahel.
What has the Trump administration done to woo African leaders back? In the Biden-era, US engagement with the Sahel, like most of the Global South, was largely through a ‘conditioned engagement’ approach, where US support was premised on democratic progress. The Trump Administration’s Bureau of African Affairs has, however, explicitly described its engagements with Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso as “a burden-shifting effort to promote regional ownership and cooperation against the enduring challenge of transnational terrorist groups in the Sahel.”
Re-Engagement and Strategic Interests
While the Trump administration has pivoted its diplomatic approach, making some deliberate moves toward re-engagement, it has simultaneously undertaken actions that undermine its own outreach. After years of sidelining the Sahel’s military rulers, the United States under President Trump is now prioritising the quest for security and minerals over the promotion of democracy.
Since Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, the National Security Council and State Department resumed high-level diplomatic engagements that had been suspended under Joe Biden. When Nigerien Prime Minister Lamine Zeine visited Washington in April 2025, State Department officials met with him to discuss strengthening bilateral and commercial ties.
That May, US Ambassador to Niger Kathleen FitzGibbon presented her credentials to Niger’s president after serving in the role for nearly two years without the host country officially receiving her papers. In late May, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for West Africa Will Stevens visited the capitals of Burkina Faso and Niger, declaring that he sought to “stimulate a new dynamic of cooperation.”
Broader Implications
The re-engagement is not confined to the executive branch. A bipartisan congressional delegation of members of the House Armed Services Committee visited Burkina Faso in 2025, indicating an openness on the part of at least some lawmakers to cooperate with countries that “share our interests,” even though US law currently restricts security assistance to coup-installed governments.
The strategic logic underpinning all of these moves is obvious. The three Sahel countries hold deposits of rare minerals like uranium and lithium that could be of interest to the White House, and together with the intensity of jihadist activity in a region that now accounts for the bulk of jihadist-related violence worldwide, these considerations could explain why the Trump administration appears to be taking its regional policy in a new direction.
