"They have the same criminal mindset": a year after replacing Wagner, the Russians of Africa Corps are committing increasing abuses in Mali.

"Mali: One Year of Africa Corps" (2/2) [the first edition can be found here]. Although placed under the direct authority of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Africa Corps troops have already carried out numerous executions, sometimes involving macabre staging.

The image is horrific. It shows the severed head of a young man—still wearing sunglasses—resting on the sand. Around it, his severed arms and legs have been arranged to form a swastika. Ousmane Ag Sidi was in his thirties. He was a herder near Zahro, a village on the banks of the Niger River between Timbuktu and Gao in northern Mali.

On June 23, according to accounts from several sources, he was on the outskirts of the village with a companion, Abdoulwahab Ag Mahamad, when they encountered a patrol comprising the Malian army and its Russian auxiliaries from the Africa Corps. The two Tuareg men were detained and then shot dead. Ousmane Ag Sidi was subsequently dismembered. It was local residents who, after the soldiers had left, discovered this macabre Nazi-style tableau.

While they had not previously gone to such extremes of horror, Russian troops from the Africa Corps have committed repeated abuses against civilians since officially replacing the Wagner Group mercenaries in Mali in June 2025.

After long resisting this change, General Assimi Goïta’s junta—in power in Bamako—eventually yielded to Kremlin pressure and accepted the deployment of this new military force. Established by the Russian Ministry of Defence to replace Wagner following the death of its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin—who was killed in a plane explosion in August 2023, two months after his mutiny against President Vladimir Putin—the unit has since been active in the region.

During their nearly four-year presence in Mali—between December 2021 and June 2025—the "musicians," as Wagner fighters dubbed themselves, committed countless massacres of civilians. Although the exact figure is difficult to determine, the number of their victims runs into the hundreds at the very least.

Some were burned alive, others tortured before being executed. Several women were also raped. Moura, in the center of the country, will go down in history as a martyred village: between March 27 and 31, 2022, at least 500 people—including children and the elderly—were methodically killed there by Russian mercenaries and the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa).

The atrocities remain comparable.

In their year of deployment in Mali, Africa Corps troops—despite being under the direct command of the Russian Ministry of Defence—have already committed numerous crimes against local populations. Although more confined to their bases and less autonomous than Wagner mercenaries, they too conduct joint patrols with the FAMa in the field, during which they enter villages or nomadic encampments.

It is primarily during operations outside their bases that they target civilians, as happened to Ousmane Ag Sidi and his companion near Zahro. The Fulani and Tuareg—often conflated with jihadists and separatists by Russian soldiers—are readily branded as "terrorists" and consequently targeted.

"There is no difference between Africa Corps and Wagner. They share the same behavior, methods, and criminal mentality. They have simply changed their label. They are not soldiers trained in the laws of war, but merely mercenaries regularized by the Russian Ministry of Defense," says Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesperson for the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA)—a predominantly Tuareg independence group fighting against the Malian army and its Russian proxies in the north of the country.

In fact, many "Wagnerites" have extended their service by signing contracts with the Russian army. The chain of command is overseen by members of the GRU, Russian military intelligence.

The nature of the atrocities remains comparable. "We have documented several beheadings, with heads sometimes left prominently displayed on the victims' torsos. The Russians may also booby-trap the corpses they leave behind, in order to kill those who come to retrieve them," explains Tilla Ag Zeini, Secretary General of the Collective for the Defense of the Rights of the People of Azawad (CD-DPA), an organization that documents crimes committed against civilians in northern Mali.

With Impunity

On July 8, 2025, near Ber, a boy of about ten had his hand blown off by a booby-trapped toy—one "deliberately left behind" by members of Africa Corps, according to an organization close to pro-independence networks. On November 26 of the same year, the remains of at least three charred bodies were discovered in the Lake F@guibine area, west of Timbuktu, following the passage of a Russian convoy.

"In the past, the Malian army has perpetrated several massacres of civilians. But this is the first time we have seen severed heads and dismembered bodies. The Russians have brought their barbaric methods to Mali, on orders from the junta," stated a former elected official from the Timbuktu region, speaking on condition of anonymity. According to the CD-DPA annual report, at least 278 civilians were killed by Africa Corps and the FAMa in the north of the country between June and December 2025.

Central Mali, where Africa Corps troops are also deployed, has not been spared. On March 29, about two kilometers from Yangasso—a small town in the Bla district—residents discovered the bodies of seven men who had been arrested the previous day and the day before that by the army and Africa Corps. "Two of them had their throats slit, and the others had gunshot wounds," according to the NGO Human Rights Watch. On May 14, at least fifteen members of a single Fulani family, including women and young children, were summarily executed near Sarakala, in the Ségou region.

Africa Corps troops do not stop at massacring people; they also regularly kill livestock, a vital source of livelihood for semi-nomadic communities. In mid-June, near the town of Aguelhok, around 300 sheep were found riddled with bullets following the passage of a joint Russian-Malian patrol. "This scorched-earth strategy has only one goal: to terrorize the population and drive them into exile in neighboring countries. It is state terrorism," says Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane.

Operationally, Africa Corps has fared no better than Wagner. During a joint offensive by jihadists and separatists in late April, the Russians demonstrated their own impotence and were forced to abandon several of their positions.

Despite the scale of the crimes committed in Mali—first by Russian mercenaries and later by regular troops—it is hard to imagine justice ever being served. The perpetrators act with total impunity, anonymously and out of sight, with the blessing of General Goïta’s junta. Russia is not a member of the International Criminal Court, and Mali announced in September 2025 its intention to withdraw—though that withdrawal has not yet taken effect.

"Africa Corps falls under the Russian Ministry of Defence. Theoretically, the Russian state bears responsibility. But no one will be held accountable, because international justice is dead," laments the former elected official from the Timbuktu region. "In today’s Mali, only the law of the strongest prevails. The only result is an intensified desire for revenge—and, consequently, a rise in the overall level of violence."