Saturday, June 21, 2025

Russia's Africa Corps

 

"The usage of plausible deniability is now replaced by managed visibility."
"The transfer of Wagner assets in Mali to Africa Corps, which is a state co-ordinated mechanism of influence is more than symbolic, as it demonstrates a strategic transition from proxy to a power chain operated by the government."
"It is not unlikely to expect that the Africa Corps could present a more professional approach, but the operational playbook of including violence will remain intact."
"The brutal counter-insurgency tactics, such as massacres and collective punishment, are structural, not just personal." 
Security researcher Nicholas Chkhaidze, Tbilisi 
 
"The Kremlin will continue to provide direct support to Africa Corps, they'll continue sending in shipments of equipment and weapons."
"We'll see a steady pace of violence by the al-Qaida group in resistance to the involvement of Russia."
Beverly Ochieng, Africa analyst, Center for Strategic and International Studies 
https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/b35bad36-137e-4210-b593-bcd2e70bae75/wirestory_b29349be737cbc14dfc435b3536711eb_16x9.jpg?w=992
The Russia-backed Wagner Group says it is leaving Mali after more than three and a half years of fighting Islamic extremists and insurgents in the country   ABC News
 
"Africa Corps is a Russian military company that was created in early 2024 as a replacement for the Wagner Group. This organization reflects Russia’s desire to extend its military influence on the African continent and to provide legitimacy to its official and public presence in the face of the European and American presence. Africa Corps is deployed in 5 countries: Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali, Central African Republic and Niger. Libya represents the core of the corps due to the previous activity of Wagner elements in the city of Tripoli…. Another factor in the choice of Libya as the headquarters of this corps is its strategic geographical location due to its connection with the Mediterranean coast, which ensures military supply lines and movement of corps members to other countries The Africa Corps’ modus operandi is entirely dependent on providing military support to African countries such as instructors and weapons. The company also is concerns with the development of strategies in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, such as is the case in Mali and Niger… In short, the Africa Corps represents the new incarnation of Russian military influence in Africa."
Foreign Military Studies Office -- U.S. Army, Training and Doctrine Command
 
https://hg2wordpressfmsostor01.z2.web.core.usgovcloudapi.net/OE%20Watch%20Issues/2024-06/Zenn%2001%20Russian%20Deputy%20Defence%20Minister%20Yunus-Bek%20Yevkurov%20(left).jpg
Russian Deputy Defence Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov (left) is heading the newly formed Africa Corps, which under his leadership is set to become a key entity through which the Russian state will project power in West Africa.
 
Russia now is openly expanding its military footprint in Africa with the rise of a paramilitary force controlled by the Kremlin. The Africa Corps force is purposefully being used by Russia to increase influence in francophone West Africa, as France's colonialist interests are waning. The Russian defence ministry, operating Africa Corps, is filling the gap left by mercenary group Wagner, founded by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, after it announced its departure from Mali. 
 
Expanding its presence as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger led by juntas after coups between 2020 and 2023, have turned from France and moved closer to Russia. Dmitry Peskov speaking for the Kremlin, explained Moscow's intent to develop comprehensive cooperation with African countries: "This cooperation also extends to such sensitive areas as defence and security", he expanded.
 
Despite the shift, analysts have no expectation that the Russian paramilitary groups mean to change its tactics of human rights violations. Half of Africa Corps' personnel are Wagner veterans, prioritizing those who had fought in Ukraine, consisting mostly of former convicts. In its three years in Mali, Wagner kidnapped, detained and tortured hundreds of civilians. Victims spoke of waterboarding, beatings with electrical cables, and being burned with cigarette butts.
 
"In the eyes of the population, this is merely a name change with no positive developments in one of the worst security situations in ten years", stated Bakary Sambe, executive director, Timbuktu Institute think tank in Dakar. For Malians, the distinction between the two Russian paramilitary groups was superficial.
 
"The handover to Africa Corps means that Russia is comfortable having a ministry of defence asset openly operating there", remarked Christopher Faulkner of the U.S. Naval War College. The Central African Republic is the "last bastion" of Wagner operations in Africa, according to the Institute for the Study of War. And there too, the Russian defence ministry plans to replace Wagner with Africa Corps. 
 
/
Posters across Bangui are reminiscent of old Soviet propaganda. The posters read: “Central African Republic is hand in hand with Russia” and “talk a little, work a lot.” - Credit: Sebastian Shukla/CNN
"[The shift to more overt Russian state presence in Africa could lead to] myriad domestic and geopolitical risks for the Kremlin." 
"The risk to Russian prestige may lead Russia to get more deeply entrenched in long-term conflicts to 'save face', which would ensnare the Kremlin in its own series of 'forever wars'."
"Wagner was more immune to such long-term entanglements and even abruptly withdrew from places, such as Mozambique, when the benefits outweighed their costs."
Institute for the Study of War 

Labels: , , , ,

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, June 21, 2025

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Strident Ebola Insecurity

"Airborne transmission has not been ruled out and this is the fundamental disagreement that we're having with the government. We need to err on the side of safety."
Ontario Nurses' Association president Linda Haslam-Stroud

"It was the nurse in Texas that really rang the alarm bells for us."
"We will do our jobs 24/7 if we are well-protected, and we have the training. But we have to ramp up what we have on paper and ramp it up fast."
"My understanding is there are gaps. We are nurses for a reason. We know that you will be placed in some kind of danger, but the best option is to make sure you are well-trained and have proper personal equipment."
Linda Silas, head, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions

"I think we passed the test in terms of the appropriate precautionary steps being taken, appropriate treatment being offered, lab tests being ordered in a rapid way. ... It was useful to see our planning that has been in place to now has really paid off."
Dr. Vera Etches, associate medical officer of health, Ottawa
A Doctors Without Borders (MSF), health worker in protective clothing carries a child suspected of having Ebola in the MSF treatment center on Oct. 5 in Paynesville, Liberia. The girl and her mother, showing symptoms of the deadly disease, were awaiting test results for the virus. The Ebola epidemic has killed more than 3,400 people in West Africa, according to the World Health Organization. (John Moore/Getty Images)

One Ottawa-area patient suspected of having the Ebola virus has been cleared. Clearance is awaited in yet another individual in Belleville. But the case of the nurse in Spain and the Texas nurse, both of whom acquired the virus from patients they were tending with Ebola, hangs heavy in the minds of Canadian nurses. The head of the organization representing 60,000 Ontario nurses expressed her fears that the province is not fully prepared.

Questions revolve around whether protective equipment should include special respirators to protect health workers from airborne particles. As well as some coverage offering more than simply gowns. Uncertainty about equipment and their protective capabilities stirs the fears of health care workers, particularly nurses across the country. Ms. Silas speaks of equipment problems she has heard of with some nurses complaining chins and necks were exposed, others that protective gowns had sleeves too short.

Equipment, she stressed, must be available at all facilities. The SARS epidemic, Ms. Haslam-Stroud reminded, infected dozens of health-care workers and death claimed three. That Canada is not yet fully prepared to cope with an epidemic in the country is a major concern to these nurses' representatives, particularly in light of the heavy death toll taken on health-care workers in the four West African countries most heavily impacted by Ebola.

And the World Health Organization warned that up to ten thousand new Ebola cases weekly could be surfacing in West Africa within the next several months. This, at the same time that it revealed the death rate in the present outbreak has risen, to 70 percent. Previous estimates given by the agency had given the Ebola mortality rate at around 50 percent. Contrast that to flu pandemics where the death rate typically is under two percent.

Ebola is considered a high-mortality disease, and the problem of isolating the ill, providing treatment as early as possible is being compounded by the increase in cases. Doctors Without Borders has said that 16 of its employees were infected with Ebola, nine of them having died. "Where is WHO Africa? Where is the African Union?" asked Sharon Ekambaram head of the South Africa unit of Doctors Without Borders. "We've all heard their promises in the media but have seen very little on the ground."

In Leipzig, Germany a 56-year-old medical worker with the United Nations infected in Liberia, died. Prompting Liberia's UN mission to place 41 other staff members under "close medical observation". In Dallas the American nurse who became Ebola-positive after treating a Liberian patient who then died, received a transfusion of plasma from Dr. Kent Brantly who received an experimental treatment to survive the virus.

The assistant nurse in Spain infected with Ebola has seen slight improvement while still in serious condition. Fifteen of her contacts were being monitored. And in the United States, over 200 people who shared a flight with another nurse from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who has now tested positive for Ebola are being sought for the purpose of isolating them until such time as their condition can be cleared.

The deadly spread appears inexorable... While withering the confidence of health-care workers to whom is entrusted the care of the infected.

Labels: , , ,

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 16, 2014

Follow @rheytah Tweet