While it’s unlikely that the Jnim-FLA alliance will seize power, or even avoid breaking apart, there are now serious questions about whether Goïta’s regime can survive.
The Russians there are part of the Africa Corps, the organisation established to take over Wagner’s operations on the continent following its brief and unsuccessful mutiny in Russia in 2023.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and subsequent spike in global prices has only strengthened Moscow’s hand.
However, it is having to abandon dreams of being a truly global power.
None of this has a direct impact on Putin’s iron grip on the country, but it highlights growing tensions within the Russian elite.
Africa, in itself, matters to very few of them, but it is part of a sense of growing pressures and accumulated small reversals.
Four years into Russia’s war with Ukraine, the struggles of the Africa Corps is further adding to the atmosphere of dejection and recrimination. »