🇷🇺Russia Tightens Its Grip on the 🌴Sahel via the Skies: An Opaque Logistics Network Between January 2025 and July 2026, pro-Russian forces conducted ✈️✈️ 75 flights to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, according to ADS-B tracking data analysed by @C4ADS. 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso accounts for the bulk of the traffic, followed by Mali, while activity in Niger remains marginal. These rotations — carried out primarily by Soviet-era Antonov An-124 and Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft — sustain Africa Corps, the successor to the Wagner Group, now operating under direct Russian military command. This aerial shuttle is more than logistical support. It forms the backbone of a grip that has consolidated since the region’s military coups. In exchange for security guarantees against groups such as JNIM and ISGS, 🇷🇺 Moscow has secured mining concessions, military bases and direct political influence, while remaining largely shielded from accountability. Civilians have paid the price through extrajudicial killings, violence and a continued deterioration of security, even as these forces have proven largely ineffective against armed groups. Operators combine state entities — notably Flight Unit 224, the Special Flight Squadron and EMERCOM — with private companies, some already under sanctions (Aviacon Zitotrans, Rubystar, Sapsan). This hybrid model obscures attribution and preserves plausible deniability. State aircraft typically transit through Russian-controlled bases in Khmeimim (Syria) and Al-Khadim 🇱🇾(Libya), while private operators favour commercial hubs in Abu Dhabi, Algeria or Turkey. These stopovers act as potential chokepoints: disrupting access to them would significantly complicate resupply. Traffic spikes have coincided with high-level visits (including Ibrahim Traoré’s trip to Moscow in May 2025) and ground offensives. Burkina Faso functions as the main regional hub. The transition from Wagner to Africa Corps has changed little on the ground: the same bases, routes and model of resource extraction and predation persist. The Central Sahel remains a strategic node for Russian influence in Africa, underpinned by a discreet, redundant and still difficult-to-disrupt air logistics network. #AfricaCorps #Wagner #RussianInfluence #Mali #BurkinaFaso #Niger #RussiaAfrica