What the Niger coup could mean for Russia’s war in Ukraine

Last week’s military coup in the West African nation of Niger could create more instability in Africa and worsen the broader international security situation involving Russia and Ukraine.

Leaders of West African nations have threatened to use force on Niger’s junta if it does not reinstate the country’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum within a week.

Supporters of mutinous soldiers hold a Russian flag as they protest in Niamey, Niger.Credit: AP

The escalation in the landlocked state bordering Libya, Chad, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and Algeria opens the possibility that Russia, through the mercenary group Wagner, could tighten its grip on the region, which experts describe as the world’s longest corridor of countries under military rule.

Any leverage Moscow achieves in the region through arms, uranium and minerals exports, or even by giving political support, may further entrench Russia’s effort to conquer eastern Ukraine.

Who has staged the coup in Niger and why?

Niger’s presidential guard deposed Bazoum last week claiming they were motivated by instability and poor security. The coup initially sparked street protests, which soldiers quickly dispersed.

General Abdourahamane Tiani has declared himself Niger’s new leader.

World leaders have called for Bazoum’s immediate release, while West African heads of state met in Nigeria on Sunday for crisis talks, imposing financial sanctions, a no-fly zone and threatening military action if the president’s leadership was not restored within a week.

President Mohamed Bazoum at the presidential palace in Niamey, Niger, in March.Credit: AP

The US, United Nations, European Union and France have all refused to recognise the power grab, with some ending significant financial aid.

Why does the coup matter for Africa’s security?

Bazoum was elected in 2021. His ascendancy was Niger’s first democratic power transition since its independence from France in 1960 and four military coups that followed.

Niger was one of the last countries to co-operate with the West in Africa’s Sahel, a region long plagued by instability amid rising Islamic extremist movements, insurgencies and coups.

“Niger is the latest domino to fall in a series of coups across the southern Saharan region,” Matthew Sussex, adjunct associate professor at Griffith University’s Griffith Asia Institute, told this masthead.

“Russia’s Wagner group already has a strong presence in Africa, and has been implicated in supporting the overthrow of Western-friendly governments.

A photo of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin purportedly appearing on the sidelines of Putin’s Russia-Africa summit last week.Credit: Twitter

“This latest coup is a blow to US influence in the region – Niger had hosted US special forces and drones – as well as other players, like France.”

In a corridor spanning 5600 kilometres, from Sudan on the east coast to Guinea on the west, there are now six countries in Africa under military rule, exposing a vacuum Russia has shown eagerness to fill.

The leader of the Russian mercenary group that supplies fighting forces to Moscow, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was quick to throw his support behind the coup, hailing it as an uprising of African people against “former colonisers ... filling these countries with terrorists and various bandit formations.”

Is Wagner involved?

Whether Wagner will insert itself, as it has in other coups throughout the Sahel, remains to be seen.

However, more than a month after he led a rebellion to march on Moscow, Prigozhin has indicated he was ready to increase Wagner’s presence in Africa, claiming his troops could restore order and destroy terrorist groups.

La Trobe University PhD candidate Isabella Currie said that there was “no evidence to suggest that the [Niger] coup is linked to Russia’s expanding interests in Africa”.

“What we have seen are images of protesters waving Russian flags at the front of the French embassy in Niger, which is something we have previously seen in coup activity in both Mali and Burkina Faso.”

Thousands of coup supporters marched through the streets of Niger’s capital at the weekend denouncing France, the country’s former colonial power.

Supporters of mutinous soldiers hold a Russian flag in Niamey, Niger, last week.Credit: AP

Following a Russia-Africa Summit held in St Petersburg, “concerns about Russia’s increasing influence in Africa are justified, but shouldn’t be overstated”, Currie said. The event was seen as Putin reinforcing Russia’s ties with the region.

While Russia released a statement calling for the release of Bazoum, images of Russian flags in the hands of pro-coup demonstrators have been seen as evidence of the Kremlin’s growing status across swaths of Africa.

Instability in Niger paves the way for even greater Russian influence in the Sahel, where 1000 Wagner mercenaries replaced 5000 French troops who left neighbouring Mali last year. Wagner also commands a powerful presence in the Central African Republic.

Nigeriens participate in a march called by supporters of coup leader General Abdourahmane Tchiani in Niamey, Niger. The sign reads: “Down with France, long live Putin”.Credit: AP

What’s in it for Wagner and Russia?

Wagner, for example, is suspected of having diverted gold from a mine it controls in Sudan, to Moscow in 2022, the year the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Western analysts fear that Wagner can provide funding that evades sanctions, even as it expands Putin’s footprint in a volatile, and, until recently, overlooked region in the world.

“The natural resource and mining programs that are connected to ‘private’ actors closely associated with the Putin-regime are shrouded in secrecy,” Currie said, so it’s too tenuous “at this stage to directly link resource extraction to the funding of the war effort in Ukraine”.

Yet, figures from Russia suggest a steady flow of the precious metal.

Despite significant sanctions put on Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, “Russian gold reserves have increased substantially,” Currie said.

Niger is the world’s seventh-biggest producer of uranium. Snatching a cut of mineral wealth that can be funnelled back to the war effort in Ukraine is also a likely Russian objective.

So, this isn’t just about African politics?

The meltdown of democratic rule in Niger could become another front in Russia’s freelance war machine, a catalyst for the spreading of Kremlin influence, and much of the democratic world rallies to Ukraine’s aid.

Instability in the Sahel region could also ultimately threaten Europe’s energy security, Excalibur Insight founder and energy consultant Daniel Foubert told The Telegraph.

“I think it could generate a new energy crisis, if Russia does in Africa what it does in Ukraine ... if they can conduct such a war in Europe, why not in Africa, when nobody is looking. The French are not interested,” he said.

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