- State affiliation · Russia
- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
State affiliation: Russia.
Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia.
In brief
The Russian defence ministry’s expeditionary force in Mali — successor to the Wagner deployment since June 2025, fighting alongside the FDS.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. No subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination confirmed
- Sources
- 10 on the record
- Record state
- Full
- Broad area of activity
- Bamako and the remaining northern and central hubs — Gao and Sévaré prominently in 2026 reporting. Analysts assess that after the loss of Kidal it withdrew from the far north and concentrated closer to Bamako, taking a more supporting role.
- Notable history
- The defence-ministry-run successor to Wagner’s Mali deployment, announced in June 2025 with most personnel carried over. The rebrand made Russia’s presence formal state policy. Africa Corps personnel were reported in Mali from late 2024, in Bamako and the centre while Wagner held the north; when Wagner posted "mission accomplished" on 6 June 2025 the corps said nothing would change, and a diplomatic source told AFP that most Russian-national Wagner personnel would be absorbed into it. Its recruits sign one-year contracts with Ministry of Defence volunteer formations — outside the regular armed forces — at pay advertised at roughly 230,000–280,000 roubles a month, with stated priority for former Wagner fighters; analysts and Russian mercenary channels put the ex-Wagner share at 70–80 per cent. Command is reported, not published: Deputy Defence Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and military-intelligence general Andrei Averyanov above the corps, and from early 2026 Major-General Vladimir Selivyorstov, an airborne officer, as the Mali commander. Sustainment is a state chain — flight tracking identified Ministry transport-unit and state-linked flights into Bamako through 2025–26, and sea convoys via Conakry delivered vehicles in early 2025. A Malian transitional-council official said in July 2026 that "coordination and cooperation have been established" between the armed forces and the corps. In the 2026 offensives it defended Bamako airport, withdrew from the far north under negotiated terms — leaving Aguelhok and Tessalit on 27 April — lost helicopters and personnel, acknowledged by Russian state media, and led the column that retook Anéfis in July. Published analysis from mid-2026 describes a deliberate shift after Kidal: fewer ground commitments, a larger share of effort in air support, intelligence provision to the FDS and convoy escort on the corridors from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal, alongside armed and first-person-view drone use, including a reported strike on a JNIM fuel depot in the Timbuktu region. One analyst characterises the posture as minimising personnel exposure while maximising effect from the air. That is an assessment of a completed repositioning, not a statement of current locations or strength at any place. This record covers the organisation’s role in the Mali conflict module only; Vigil scopes force records to the theatre they operate in, and a future global-entity model may connect theatre-specific roles across modules.
- Strengths
- State backing and resupply from Russia; aviation and fire-support integration with the FDS; continuity of personnel and local knowledge from the Wagner phase; a growing armed-drone capability that substitutes for ground presence.
- Limitations
- Fixed to a shrinking set of hubs; its visibility makes every loss a publicised test of Russian prestige; inherits the predecessor’s documented conduct record and the grievances it produced, and is now itself the subject of a documented civilian-harm case in its own right rather than only through the Wagner lineage. Human Rights Watch reported on 31 July 2026 that two air strikes on Kyrnia, in the Mopti region, on 15 June 2026 killed eight civilians including three children at a village chief’s residence and a cattle market, and assessed the attack as apparently unlawful. Africa Corps had publicly claimed the strike hit a gathering of armed-group commanders; the investigation found no known armed-group casualties at the two impact points. The legal characterisation is Human Rights Watch’s and is recorded here as that organisation’s finding. A second investigation, published 20 August 2026, found that more than 100 Africa Corps fighters accompanied by Malian soldiers raided Bombori in the same region on 10 July 2026, summarily killing nine civilians including four children, rounding up and beating at least 80 men and boys, and burning at least eight homes; the organisation wrote to the Russian and Malian defence ministers on 4 and 5 August and received no reply. No Malian or Russian official investigation, denial or acknowledgement has been announced in either case, and that consistent non-response is this record’s standing finding about the accountability environment rather than a finding about any single incident.
Related organisations
- Malian Defence and Security Forces (FDS) Cooperated with · high confidence
Joint operations documented through the 2026 fighting, including the Anéfis relief column.
Lineage & institutional history
Predecessors: Wagner Group — Mali deployment history
Related locations
Anéfis: Personnel accompanied the relief column ambushed near Tabrichat on 9 July 2026 and the second column that reached the town. Gao–Kidal corridor: The axis its 2026 relief operations were fought along.
Sustainment
The supply and industrial records this force depends on, in the record's own words. A dependency, never a route, a capacity or a stock.
- Northern military sustainment Logistics · Documented
The corps fought the 2026 relief operations along the northern axis the record describes, and depends on the same road.
- Central Mali sustainment and position regeneration Logistics · Documented
Operates from the Sévaré hub and the camps the record describes as easier to lose than to put back.
Dated structural changes
2025-06 Identity change Took over the Wagner deployment's role in Mali after Wagner posted "mission accomplished" on 6 June 2025; the defence-ministry-run successor had been building up from late 2024.
Campaigns
Campaigns naming this organisation as a participant. The campaign record owns the relationship and grades it; this list is computed.
- JNIM fuel blockade campaign Supporting force · Declared September 2025; eased and reimposed since · moderate confidence · as of 2026-07
Documented in joint operations with the FDS through the 2026 fighting. Its specific role in corridor security is less well reported than its role in the northern and central hubs.
- FLA–JNIM offensives, 2026 Supporting force · April 2026 – present · moderate confidence · as of 2026-07
Withdrew from the far north in April under reportedly negotiated terms; led the column that retook Anéfis in July, with acknowledged losses.
Key events
Wagner exits, Africa Corps remains
Wagner announces its "mission accomplished" departure from Mali; the Russian presence continues under the defence-ministry-run Africa Corps, absorbing much of the same personnel.
The FLA ambushes a Malian–Russian logistics convoy on the road to Aguelhok
Fighters of the Azawad Liberation Front attacked a Malian army and Africa Corps logistics convoy travelling from Anéfis to Aguelhok, near Anoumalane some forty kilometres from Aguelhok. The army confirmed the attack; the FLA claimed more than twenty vehicles destroyed and dozens killed, figures no other party verified.
April 2026 offensive — Kidal falls, the defence minister is killed
The FLA and JNIM launch the war's largest coordinated offensive since 2012, reported as the first time the two openly coordinated operations: the FLA takes Kidal as government and Russian forces withdraw from the far north, reportedly under negotiated terms, and a car bombing at Kati kills Defence Minister Sadio Camara. The withdrawals extend well beyond Kidal — Africa Corps is reported to have left Aguelhok on 27 April, though a Malian garrison stayed and repelled an attack there in July; government and Russian forces left Tessalit, where the FLA was filmed in the town by 1 May; Malian troops left Tessit in the Gao region, and Ber in the Tombouctou region was given up under negotiation. IS-Sahel joins on 28 April, occupies the vacated Labbezanga border post and briefly enters Ménaka town before withdrawing under reported Russian pressure. JNIM reimposes a full blockade of Bamako on 28 April, claims wide gains around Mopti, and reportedly follows with checkpoints on the capital's approaches.
July 2026 nationwide attacks and the battle for Anéfis
A second coordinated wave hits Anéfis, Aguelhok, Gao, Sévaré and Kéniéroba, later Konna and Somadougou. FLA and JNIM fighters besiege the Anéfis base, ambush a Malian–Africa Corps relief convoy near Tabrichat and down an Mi-24; a second column from Gao breaks through and the army announces the town retaken on 10 July, at a stated cost of about 30 soldiers.
A second documented Africa Corps civilian-harm case, and a second non-response
Human Rights Watch reported on 20 August 2026 that Russian government controlled Africa Corps forces summarily killed nine civilians, including four children, and beat dozens of others at Bombori village in the Mopti region in early July 2026. According to the organisation's findings, more than 100 Africa Corps fighters accompanied by several Malian soldiers entered the village at about 05:00 on 10 July, broke into homes in the ethnic Fulani neighbourhood, rounded up at least 80 men and boys, beat and interrogated them about alleged links to Islamist armed groups, shot six civilians who tried to flee, and detained and executed three others, one of whom was beheaded; at least eight homes were looted and burned. Human Rights Watch said it wrote to the Russian and Malian defence ministers on 4 and 5 August setting out its findings and questions and received no response. The findings are the organisation's own investigation and have not been independently confirmed; neither government has publicly responded.
The camp at Dioura is overrun, and is not re-established
JNIM attacks the Malian army camp at Dioura, in the Ténenkou cercle of the Mopti region, and claims total control of the barracks. Security, military and local sources give AFP a rising toll over eight days — first more than fifty soldiers and five Africa Corps personnel, then sixty to eighty, then more than a hundred including two officers, with between sixty and ninety taken prisoner; JNIM claims 150 killed and 93 captured. RFI's local sources give about a hundred killed and dozens captured; on 21 September Reuters cites a security source for 130 killed and more than a hundred taken hostage and a diplomatic source for about 120 killed. The Malian authorities announce air-ground operations against the attackers, acknowledge unspecified losses of their own in an operation lasting more than a week, and publish no toll. Local sources say the attackers returned the following day, that no reinforcements were sent and that the camp was emptied of its weaponry; on 21 September RFI reports that no Malian soldier and no Africa Corps member remains at the site.
Participants describe a Ukrainian drone deployment with the Azawad Liberation Front
CNN published an investigation reporting that about fifteen Ukrainian specialists are deployed in northern Mali working with the Azawad Liberation Front, providing training, support and operational help rather than taking part in front-line fighting, with one operator describing coordinating local drone flights remotely — receiving the video feed over the internet and directing the aircraft by radio. The account rests on interviews with two Ukrainian drone operators said to be deployed there, a Ukrainian Defence Intelligence source, and a named Defence Intelligence spokesman; the source is quoted describing Kyiv as turning its drone experience into a foreign policy tool. The same reporting carries three weaker claims, each on a single anonymous source: that several Ukrainian specialists are also in Sudan, that personnel from Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso had earlier travelled to Mali for Ukrainian drone training, and that Ukrainians assisted the Front's takeover of Kidal. Russia's Defence Ministry has separately said Ukrainian and European mercenary instructors trained the movements before that assault. No state has confirmed any element of the account.
The army and Africa Corps re-enter Kidal as the FLA withdraws
Malian forces and Russia's Africa Corps entered Kidal on 6 October 2026 without a fight, five months after the FLA and JNIM took it. The general staff had announced large-scale air-ground operations in the Kidal region with its Russian partners, after strikes that intensified from 4 October on the town and on Tinzaouatène. Two Malian officers told AFP the column entered shortly before 1 pm and met no resistance. The FLA announced the same day a "strategic and controlled withdrawal", which it called temporary, and blamed the air campaign. That evening the transition government described the consolidation of its position in Kidal and the gradual return of administration, and the army said its offensive in the region would continue. RFI reported a column of about 120 vehicles from Anéfis carrying Malian soldiers, Africa Corps personnel and fighters of the MSA and Gatia, Tuareg groups integrated into the army. An FLA cadre told RFI the withdrawal was decided with JNIM, which did not fight for the town.
Quick actions
System access
Where this record connects into the rest of Vigil. Each row is here because this organisation actually reaches it.
Assessed as of — 2026-09 Last reviewed — 2026-09-09
See this force in the structure Interactive: select this record and follow what connects to it.