Gold and guns: Inside Putin’s new African dependencies
Russia is taking over new gold mines in Africa, which Putin is using to finance the war against Ukraine. Sudan just signed a deal to take control of the extraction of this precious metal in exchange for weapons deliveries, "Sudan Tribune" reported on Tuesday.
After sanctions were imposed on Russia, the number of Russian mercenaries in Africa quickly increased along with companies involved in gold mining, especially in West Africa and Sudan.
African gold is usually laundered through transit markets before it reaches Russia. In Cameroon, for instance, gold is smuggled from West African countries. From Cameroon, small private planes transport it either directly to Russia or, more often, to the Gulf countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates, from where it enters global markets legally, including Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
It's relatively easy for Russia to carry out such illegal transactions because tracking gold extracted in West Africa is complicated by sanctions that the regional organization ECOWAS has imposed on Mali. Mali is the third-largest gold producer in Africa and the 13th-largest in the world.
Mali is estimated to have 880 tonnes of gold deposits extracted from about 300 small mines, which Russia tries to control through its mercenaries.
According to "The Africa Report" magazine, mercenaries from the now-disbanded Wagner Group have taken over at least three of Mali's largest mines and many small ones, where miners pan for gold in streams.
In November 2023, Mali committed to launching a Russian refinery in Bamako, ensuring that all gold mined in the country will pass through Russian hands.
Russia also acquires gold in the Central African Republic, where a company fully controlled by Russian mercenaries has been granted exclusive rights to Ndassima, the country's largest gold mine, in exchange for protecting President Faustin-Archange Touadera's regime.
Weapons for gold. Putin's new business in Sudan
A Russian trade delegation is currently in Sudan to secure Moscow's ability to mine gold in several mines as early as next month. One source told "Sudan Tribune" that in exchange for gold, Russia offers weapons to the war-torn country.
Russian gold mining company Nordgold is also active in Burkina Faso and Guinea. Small Russian companies extract gold in Sierra Leone, with whom Russia is tightening relations and plans to open a diplomatic office in Freetown later this year. Russia's cooperation with Sierra Leone's mining sector is facilitated by the country's mining minister, Julius Daniel Mattai, who likes to show off his knowledge of the Russian language.
According to a report by Blood Gold, an organization documenting human rights violations related to the exploitation of natural resources, Russia extracted $2.5 billion worth of gold from Africa within just two years of starting the invasion of Ukraine.
The ultimate goal of Russian mercenaries in Africa is to make African regimes wanting to stay in power dependent on them, "which ensures a long-term income stream for the Kremlin, supporting authoritarianism and instability throughout the region, which is part of Russia's broader geopolitical strategy to divert the democratic West's attention away from Ukraine," explained the Blood Gold Report on Russia's presence in Africa.
