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Introduction: Ukraine’s Two Africa Strategies
In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine has conducted intelligence operations versus Russian military contractors and other regime-related targets across Africa and the Middle East. These operations have demonstrated the remarkable agility and boldness of Kyiv’s intelligence services in attacking vulnerable parts of the Kremlin’s sprawling security apparatus and its global footprint. Unfortunately, these operational successes contrast starkly with the ongoing struggles of other parts of the Ukrainian government responsible for public diplomacy campaigns and the development of economic initiatives that benefit African nations. Such well-intentioned initiatives have thus far proved unsuccessful at countering Russia’s decades-long diplomatic engagement on the continent. Kyiv’s operations against Russia, in which Ukraine has haphazardly involved itself with governments and non-state actors battling Russia-backed forces, have hardly helped in this respect. Observing Ukraine’s Africa strategy writ large, one is left uncertain as to whether Kyiv is more concerned with going after Russian forces on the continent than its own diplomacy.
In December 2023, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs laid out Kyiv’s ostensible objectives in Africa: showcasing Ukraine’s potential as a partner for African countries in defense and agriculture, ensuring greater support for Ukraine in multilateral fora such as the United Nations, and conveying the negative consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion for Africans. But its kinetic operations on the continent advance an additional motive articulated by Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR) in 2023: to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.” In this capacity, Ukrainian intelligence services see an opportunity to disrupt Russia’s military operations across the continent, to hammer private military companies (PMCs) tied to the Kremlin, and to lend support to groups that have been fighting Russia’s African partners.
Observing Ukraine’s Africa strategy writ large, one is left uncertain as to whether Kyiv is more concerned with going after Russian forces on the continent than its own diplomacy.
Yet developments since 2022 have demonstrated that pursuing these motives simultaneously is no easy feat. The reality is that Ukraine’s resources in the military and security realm are already stretched thin by the war, let alone clandestine activities much further afield. Moreover, the concrete benefits of conducting kinetic operations against Russia in Africa are not immediately obvious. In fact, these operations’ dramatic, attention-grabbing nature seems designed to reinforce Ukraine’s international image as a dynamic, ruthless hunter of global Russia.
But in Africa, they play differently. Senior Ukrainian officials profess their support for conventional diplomacy and friendship-building with the continent’s leaders and citizens. Unfortunately, HUR’s swagger and high-risk operations threaten to undermine such efforts. As of this writing, the value of Ukraine’s targeting of Russian interests in Africa lies primarily in the realm of public relations, not tactical utility. But the persistence of such attacks suggests that Kyiv will continue to look for ways to punish Russia beyond the front line, even in the event that the war eventually ends or a durable ceasefire takes hold.
It is not clear whether Ukraine’s leadership recognizes that such tactics have created unintended consequences that are undercutting other interests, most notably Kyiv’s desire to establish productive diplomatic and economic partnerships with African countries. Indeed, Ukrainian covert action against Russian PMCs often is tantamount to Kyiv inserting itself into African conflicts with little care for regional dynamics or complexities. This scenario is risky for Kyiv, as it has the potential to make Ukraine appear to be just another foreign power capitalizing on African instability, and raises the possibility of an open-ended shadow war in parts of the Global South against Russian targets—one with little strategic benefit for Kyiv—that will continue long after any ceasefire or reduction in the level of fighting inside Ukraine.
Ukrainian covert action against Russian PMCs often is tantamount to Kyiv inserting itself into African conflicts with little care for regional dynamics or complexities.
Ukraine’s diplomatic disadvantages on the continent compared to Russia mean that there is little room for slip-ups or the fostering of contradictory or inconsistent messages. Whereas the Kremlin’s wealth, its military resources, and the Soviet-era legacy of anti-colonialism all provide advantages that enhance Russia’s overall standing in Africa, Kyiv must rely on more careful and deliberate forms of diplomacy. If Ukraine wants to build out its relationships on the continent for economic partnership, it should consider the ways its kinetic engagements of Russian mercenaries risk undermining that policy. If advancing such diplomatic and economic partnerships is paramount, Kyiv will need to make judicious choices about how it confronts Russian interests, without running afoul of local dynamics and by accounting for the interests of potential partner nations.
A Troubled Diplomacy
In its Africa outreach, Ukraine has relied primarily on bilateral and multilateral diplomatic initiatives, as well as public diplomacy campaigns that promote pro-Ukraine narratives about the war and Ukraine’s role as a major grain supplier to the Global South. But prior to 2022, Ukraine’s ties to the continent were minimal at best. Kyiv maintained only eleven diplomatic missions across Africa’s fifty-four nations. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine launched a diplomatic push, opening eight additional embassies in three years. Ukrainian representatives touted the country’s role as a grain exporter for the developing world, its support for the UN World Food Programme, and its “Grain from Ukraine” initiative, funded by international donors. Kyiv also developed a strategic communications strategy for African countries, and President Volodymyr Zelensky embarked on his first tour of Africa in 2025.
Yet for all these efforts, Kyiv is still playing catchup with Moscow, which boosted its African ties following the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 as part of its broader geopolitical ambitions.
In the words of former Carnegie scholar Paul Stronski,
Africa plays an outsized role in Russia’s long-standing pursuit of a multipolar world order. Russian diplomats routinely look to it for potential partners in efforts to dilute the influence of the United States and its allies in international bodies . . . [Russia can] count on backing from African partners on key UN votes such as the 2014 General Assembly resolution critical of the Russian annexation of Crimea . . . Russia has also relied on its African partners to support its position on key UN votes on Syria and a December 2018 resolution condemning Russia’s militarization of Crimea, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov.
The Kremlin’s Africa forays have also translated into expanded geopolitical influence, arms deals, and occasional economic opportunities. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group and other Kremlin-backed mercenary outfits have played a major role in this process in Sudan, the Central African Republic, and various states in the Sahel since at least 2017. As Carnegie’s Nate Reynolds has written, Wagner has served as a vehicle to fulfil the Kremlin’s geopolitical interests, allowing Moscow “to fill vacuums where the West is absent, with an eye toward developing security relationships and gaining access to resources,” while simultaneously enriching Prigozhin and those close to him.
Under Prigozhin’s leadership, Wagner allowed the Kremlin to be extremely nimble and opportunistic in expanding relationships with African governments. Wagner built close ties to leaders in a handful of countries, providing physical security for high-level officials as well as equipment and training for various military units and security services. These efforts were sometimes complemented by teams of political consultants and media advisers who helped run political and social media campaigns to benefit ruling regimes. In return, Prigozhin and his benefactors in Moscow were rewarded with concessions in the mining sector and other forms of economic activity that helped cover the cost of Wagner’s operations and provided revenue streams to various camps within the Putin regime.
For nearly a decade, the Kremlin happily allowed this model to evolve as Russian-backed PMCs and political operatives plied their wares throughout the continent. A string of coups from 2020 through 2023 created yet more openings for Russian-controlled PMCs in countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Chad. These deployments increasingly put Russians into advisory and combat roles alongside local security forces, leading to a well-documented series of atrocities and human rights abuses against civilians. Military leaders who seized power in these countries traded on resentment toward France, the former colonial power, and widespread feelings of citizen insecurity amid heightened attacks by violent extremist organizations. The expulsion of long-standing French military contingents, and, in some cases, forward deployed U.S. personnel from USAFRICOM and the intelligence community, created new opportunities for Russian security contractors modeled on Wagner. Following Prigozhin’s failed rebellion in summer 2023, the lead role was handed to Africa Corps, which reincorporated assets and personnel from Wagner under the direct supervision of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Moscow has also expanded its efforts outside the military and security domains following the full-scale invasion. Moscow leveraged its sprawling state-funded media and propaganda apparatus to mount strategic communications and disinformation efforts across the continent. Kremlin-backed media outlets, surrogates, and social media campaigns skillfully shifted blame for the war in Ukraine onto U.S. president Joe Biden’s administration and its European allies, promoted self-serving Russian narratives, and hampered diplomatic efforts in multilateral forums to isolate the Kremlin. After the Russian navy’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports disrupted global food supplies and created punishing inflationary effects for fragile economies across the Middle East and Africa, Russian information operations and tools redirected blame for the crisis toward Western economic sanctions. Similarly, the Kremlin successfully amplified popular anger against the alleged double standards and indifference of U.S. and European governments toward the suffering of Palestinian citizens during the war in Gaza.
By comparison, the success of Ukrainian outreach to Africa has been limited at best. Ukrainian efforts to generate statements of support from members of the UN General Assembly to isolate and condemn Moscow have required increasing amounts of political capital from Kyiv and its Western allies over time. Russia’s naked aggression in Ukraine certainly alienated a number of Global South countries, but in many respects, Kyiv has been swimming upstream when trying to force African countries to take sides publicly at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), because Moscow plays hardball against countries that criticize it publicly. UN voting data gives a clear picture of flagging support for Kyiv in Africa after 2025. In 2023, twenty-five African states cast votes in the UNGA condemning Russia’s invasion in 2023 (with only two voting against). By 2025, the number of African supporters of Ukraine had dwindled to thirteen, with eight voting against a similar resolution.
Kyiv’s ability to shape African public opinion is inherently circumscribed by its smaller budgetary resources and more traditional approach to engaging with global audiences. Whereas Russia’s state-backed propaganda apparatus amplifies pro-Kremlin narratives and disinformation across the entire continent, Ukraine focuses on emphasizing the threat Russia poses to African partners and illustrating the war’s “parallels to their own post-colonial experience.”
Kyiv’s ability to shape African public opinion is inherently circumscribed by its smaller budgetary resources and more traditional approach to engaging with global audiences.
Ukrainian- and Western-funded initiatives have also pushed back on Russian disinformation through media training programs and visits to wartime Ukraine by delegations of African journalists. Exposés by investigative journalists have documented Russia’s suborning of unwitting Africans to support the war in Ukraine. Such accounts of barely-trained soldiers thrown into the worst of the fighting or deceptive “exchange programs” for African students and workers who end up in munitions factories or on the front lines are indeed harrowing, but they have largely failed to break through to mass audiences or to puncture omnipresent pro-Kremlin narratives.
The impact of such time-intensive diplomatic and communications efforts has at times been directly undercut by Kyiv’s intelligence and kinetic operations, which have damaged its image and reputation in the eyes of many African governments. From a purely bureaucratic standpoint, it is understandable that Ukraine’s diplomatic, information, and economic efforts are managed separately from the kinetic campaigns against Russia pursued by Ukrainian special forces and intelligence agencies. But explanations that the right hand doesn’t always know what the left is doing are not terribly persuasive to African officials and citizens dealing with insecurity, violent extremist organizations, and regional conflict. Rather than appearing as a defender of Africans against Russian PMCs and other predatory aspects of Russian power projection, Ukraine has ended up resembling another European power playing for influence on the continent.
Explanations that the right hand doesn’t always know what the left is doing are not terribly persuasive to African officials and citizens dealing with insecurity, violent extremist organizations, and regional conflict.
Sudan: Backing the State
The first venue for Ukraine’s covert operations against Russia’s financial and security interests in Africa was Sudan. Wagner has been active in that country since at least 2017, when Prigozhin’s men began providing security to then leader Omar al-Bashir’s regime and negotiating “agreements spanning some of Sudan’s most lucrative sectors such as oil, natural gas, agriculture, and gold,” according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Sudan has been mired in instability following a coup that removed al-Bashir from power in 2019. Seeking access to Sudanese ports, Russia initially supported Sudan’s Transitional Military Council, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in international fora and via training for military officers, but proved to be an inconsistent ally as the country descended into chaos. A full-scale civil war began in April 2023 after fighting erupted between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a militia led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and the armed forces of Sudan’s transitional government. Wagner entered the fray by supplying fighters and materiel to the RSF, who pushed into Khartoum within a few days and began a grueling, yearslong battle for control of the city.
Here, Ukrainian security officials saw a chance to complicate Moscow’s opportunistic moves in Sudan. According to interviews in the Wall Street Journal with Ukrainian HUR personnel, Kyiv sent approximately 100 special force troops into Khartoum in mid-August 2023 to aid the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)—and, according to one officer, “to disrupt Russian interests in Sudan.” The operation began as a mission to evacuate al-Burhan from the capital; it expanded into attacks by HUR operators against Wagner-backed RSF troops. Through at least February 2024, HUR carried out precision drone strikes and nighttime ground operations against RSF fighters in Khartoum. Video of these operations soon appeared on CNN and Ukrainian-controlled Telegram channels, as did footage of captured Wagner personnel being interrogated by HUR operatives. To add insult to injury, Zelensky held a “spontaneous” meeting with al-Burhan during a refueling stop in Dublin in September 2023.
Kyiv’s intervention was modest in scale and cost, but helped the SAF to innovate tactically by introducing night operations and higher-quality weapons into the battlefield. After its attacks, Kyiv continued to supply advanced drone and piloting training to the SAF, reportedly communicating in Russian via Soviet-educated Sudanese translators. Yet any long-term benefits on the ground and public relations boosts proved fleeting. As of 2025, Sudan’s civil war continues, and support from the Kremlin now straddles both sides of the conflict. In service of its long-running ambitions to secure a naval base in Port Sudan—particularly acute after its losses in Syria—Moscow has built bridges to the SAF, even sending Russian servicemen to train SAF soldiers as Russian mercenaries continue to operate in RSF-controlled regions.
Mali: Backing Jihadists and Separatists
In the Sahel, Ukraine has tried to support separatists battling military-led governments backed by Russia. In Mali, jihadist and ethnic Tuareg separatists are engaged in a protracted conflict with the ruling junta in Bamako. Ukraine has been tacitly cooperating with the separatists since early 2024, supplying the kind of small, explosive drones Kyiv has become especially adept at producing and deploying at home.
In July 2024, Russian contractors suffered a major setback in Mali, thanks at least in part to Ukrainian involvement. In the north of the country, rebels successfully ambushed a Wagner convoy in the Tinzaouaten desert, killing at least eighty-four members of the PMC and forty-seven Malian soldiers. HUR spokesman Andriy Yusov later claimed that “the rebels received necessary information, which enabled a successful military operation against the Russian war criminals.”
Ukraine’s reputational boost from the operation proved short-lived. Mali and Niger protested by breaking off diplomatic ties with Kyiv—a bad look, since Ukraine’s foreign minister was about to embark on a tour of Africa. In Senegal, Yurii Pyvovarov, Ukraine’s ambassador, was summoned by Dakar after reposting Yusov’s video on Facebook. ECOWAS, a regional bloc of twelve West African states at odds with Bamako, issued a strongly-worded statement condemning “any foreign interference” in the conflict in Mali. Kyiv was forced to backtrack, denying its involvement in Mali, but the damage to its image was done. Today, Russia’s Africa Corps retains a strong presence in Mali, working closely with government-affiliated militias that have been repeatedly accused of crimes against civilians.
A Different Approach in Libya
When Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell in December 2024, the Kremlin lost its most steadfast ally in the Middle East and a critical channel into Africa. Copying its playbook from Sudan, HUR conducted a series of missions against the Russian contingent in Syria, beginning in the second half of 2024: Footage emerged in September that year of HUR special forces attacking a Russian base outside Aleppo, and Kyiv supplied drones for the December offensive against Assad.
Ukrainian intelligence services also sought to cause trouble for the Kremlin in less kinetic contexts. Syria is home to naval and air bases that are important for Moscow’s ability to support operations in Africa. Even though Moscow has managed to hold onto the bases for the time being and to establish a new modus vivendi with Syria’s new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group he controls, it is now actively seeking possible alternatives.
Ukrainian intelligence services are watching these efforts closely and have released information that shines an unwelcome spotlight on Russian activities. For example, in early 2025, HUR announced that Russia was moving materiel from Syria into Libya, corroborating earlier statements by Libyan officials and noting the names of specific Russian vessels associated with the Kremlin’s “ghost fleet” (the hundreds of ships used by Moscow to dodge oil sanctions and to flout arms embargos in the Mediterranean). Ukraine shares an interest with the West—including Washington, despite some shifts in policy toward Tripoli under President Donald Trump—in pushing Russia out of Libya and inhibiting arms shipments to the Benghazi-based forces of strongman Khalifa Haftar. By tracing Russia’s actions in the region, Ukraine has the potential to contribute to a mission shared by its Western European allies with its comparatively limited kinetic resources without having to give up its interest in broadcasting its operations abroad.
Policy Implications: Two Futures for Ukraine in Africa
Since 2022, Kyiv has demonstrated a willingness to reach beyond Europe to target Russian interests, including through kinetic attacks on Russian personnel and bases. Yet such efforts have too often been at odds with Ukraine’s diplomatic goals, earning Kyiv the ire of some of the very nations whose partnership it seeks. As the war grinds on, Ukraine’s leaders, per Budanov, will almost certainly find ways to confront Russia “anywhere on the face of this world” and to proudly inform the rest of the world of its successes.
But Ukraine should not, as it has in the past, let that impulse to oppose Russia overwhelm its ability to engage in authentic relationship-building with African nations, which Kyiv is likely to continue to desire. Otherwise, it risks failing to achieve its goals in Africa both as a partner to other nations and as a disruptor of Russian interests.
One low-risk approach that would serve the interests of both Ukraine and its partners would be to act as a regional intelligence gatherer, as HUR demonstrated in Libya and Syria. It is conceivable that Ukraine could fill some of the gaps created by the rapid drawdown of the French and U.S. military and intelligence presence in the Sahel and other key parts of the continent. In April 2025, USAFRICOM Commander Michael Langley testified that the United States, having scaled back its presence on the continent, was increasingly “limited in the ability to monitor the expanding influence of terrorist organizations” in the Sahel. While Ukraine obviously does not bring stronger intelligence-gathering capabilities to the table than the United States, it does have the potential to shine a light on the activities of Russian PMCs and other malign actors, monitoring the Kremlin’s movements and supplying or corroborating critical information to Western partners.
Ukraine should not, as it has in the past, let that impulse to oppose Russia overwhelm its ability to engage in authentic relationship-building with African nations.
In that way, Kyiv has the opportunity to further prove its value as a security partner; Western intelligence services, in return, could enable Kyiv’s activities by providing training and equipment to Ukrainian counterparts. Since 2021, targeted public release of Ukrainian intelligence information about Russian military and intelligence operations has proven to be an effective tool for putting pressure on Russia’s global security relationships. By contrast, covert action against Russian PMCs and troops by Ukrainian intelligence is likely to be more risky and pay smaller dividends.
An even riskier option, which holds the potential to aggravate the ongoing shadow war and to harm Kyiv’s relationships with African states, would be for Ukrainian leaders to create their own PMCs. On one level, the logic is understandable: If and when Ukraine demobilizes, it will be left with a vast population of experienced military veterans eager for work and deeply embittered toward Russia.
Although PMCs remain outlawed in Ukraine, discussions in the Verkhovna Rada continue over their potential legalization—and Zelensky has recently hinted that he might support the idea. Earlier this year, Zelensky signed a law permitting Ukrainian troops to serve abroad during martial law. While ostensibly meant to enhance cooperation with nearby partners, this change could also pave the way to further military engagement in Africa like the kind witnessed in Sudan, and even lead to broader military diplomacy between Ukraine and African nations.
But is such engagement in Ukraine’s best interest? Moscow has frequently tried to amplify negative blowback from HUR attacks on Russian PMC personnel. Just this year, Mali’s foreign minister Abdoulaye Diop called Ukraine a “sponsor of terrorism” at a press conference in Moscow, and such language is a mainstay of how Russian officials describe Ukraine’s behavior on the continent. Ukrainian covert action in the Sahel has not yielded strategic impacts on Russia’s ability to sustain the war in Ukraine or to pull back from its ongoing activities in various parts of Africa. Moreover, such activities have undercut other Ukrainian gestures of goodwill toward Africa. A similar result is likely if Kyiv moves to set up its own PMCs and unleashes them onto the continent.
In any event, a continued shadow war appears likely. The key policy question for Ukrainian leaders and security officials, and their Western supporters, is whether such activities will actually pay meaningful dividends compared to a more cautious, deliberate approach that factors in constraints on Ukrainian capabilities.
As Kyiv seeks to improve relationships with African nations, it will have to be mindful that it is operating from a position of relative weakness and that it has yet to close serious gaps in regional expertise among its diplomats, economists, and security officials. Any future HUR operations on the continent, whether focused on intelligence gathering or covert action, will need to be guided by a better understanding of local dynamics and the interests of African nations with which Kyiv seeks to partner. Ukraine has the potential to build lasting and effective partnerships in Africa. But success in that effort depends first and foremost on a clear appreciation of mutual interest and sensitivity toward the priorities of prospective African partners. Freewheeling score-settling and targeting of Moscow’s security personnel across the continent is unlikely to provide a comparable payoff.
