This policy research report by Emmanuel Yeboah provides a comprehensive examination of Moscow’s expanding diplomatic, military, and economic footprint across sub-Saharan Africa. It details how Russia leverages security-for-resources arrangements, primarily through Africa Corps (formerly Wagner), and industrial-scale disinformation campaigns to capitalize on institutional vacuums, anti-colonial grievances, and Western withdrawals in the Sahel. The publication demonstrates how these mercenary-driven partnerships fail to reduce regional conflict while enabling the extraction of critical minerals that help finance Russia’s war economy.
The empirical core of the study uncovers the systematic recruitment of African students, migrants, and young job-seekers who are lured through deceptive civilian employment offers, soft-power channels, and unreadable contracts into front-line combat in Ukraine. Framing this pipeline as state-organized human trafficking under the Palermo Protocol, the report provides actionable policy recommendations for African governments, European partners, and multilateral platforms to disrupt recruitment networks, protect vulnerable populations, and match Russian soft-power investments with resilient democratic alternatives.
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