Abstract
Wagner Group, the armed non-state actor linked to the Kremlin, is both a tool and target of great power competition in Africa. Moscow employs Wagner Group as a tool to consolidate and expand the Russian presence on the continent. Washington designated Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization in January 2023 in response to the Russian entity's roles in Ukraine and Africa. This article explores the implications that Wagner Group, and the great power dynamics that envelop it, pose for Canadian policy, especially vis-à-vis Africa. It contends that Wagner Group's activities in Africa upset longstanding Canadian expectations about armed non-state actors and their role in extractive industries, and undermine, with Russian support, the UN and its peacekeeping in Africa. However, mounting a robust opposition to Wagner Group in Africa, as Washington hopes for, will require greater commitment, focus, and risk tolerance than Ottawa has shown in recent years.
Despite the 23 June 2023 mutiny in Russia and the subsequent death two months later of its public face, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner Group remains both a tool and target of great power competition in Africa. Wagner Group, the armed and seemingly non-state actor (see below), will continue to consolidate and expand Russia's presence on the continent, according to the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell: “They will remain operational in Africa because it is the armed wing of Russia.” 1 Joana de Deus Pereira of Royal United Services Institute stresses that “[w]e have to look at Wagner not only as a single man but as an ecosystem, as a hydra with many…heads and many diverse interests in Africa.” 2 Unsurprisingly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has also indicated that Wagner Group's activities in Africa would continue. 3 Indeed, at the time of this writing, the composition of the group's new leadership in Africa is under consideration as is the name of the group going forward. 4 It follows that, as a target, Wagner Group (or whatever it will ultimately be named) continues to attract US ire. After the mutiny, Washington instituted a new round of sanctions targeting the group's African efforts. 5 This followed Washington's January 2023 designation of Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization, which came with the additional possibility of labelling it a foreign terrorist organization.
This article explores the implications that Wagner Group and its associated dynamics of great power competition pose for Canadian policy, especially vis-à-vis Africa. It contends that Wagner Group's activities upset longstanding Canadian expectations about armed non-state actors and, particularly, their role in extractive industries. They also undermine, with Russian support, the UN and its peacekeeping in Africa. However, mounting a robust opposition to Wagner Group in Africa, as Washington hopes for, would require greater commitment, focus, and risk tolerance than Ottawa has shown in recent years, given the nature of Canadian military operations and its policy of engagement.
To make this case, the article has four parts. The first describes Canadian regulatory efforts for the private military and security industry to illustrate how Wagner Group's activities stand in contradistinction. The second part examines Canada's involvement in African mineral extraction and its support for the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. It also highlights the importance of African resources to Russia and shows how Wagner Group runs in counteropposition to the Voluntary Principles. The third part describes Wagner Group's interactions with Africa-based UN peacekeeping efforts and Russia's activism on the UN Security Council. Finally, the fourth part identifies the challenges Ottawa will face due to Wagner's status as a tool and target of great power competition.
Canada and security privatization
To contextualize Wagner Group and its bases of operation, note that Canada has sought to develop an international private military and security industry that is transparent, compliant with its legal responsibilities, and oriented defensively. One should consider here the 2008 Montreux Document on pertinent international legal obligations and good practices for states related to operations of private military and security companies during armed conflict, and the 2010 International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC). The former is a state-oriented effort launched by Switzerland and the International Committee of the Red Cross, while the latter is a follow-on multi-party industry initiative. Both endeavours make plain the legal implications of contracting Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs), as the concern was once that companies allowed “governments to pursue policies in tough corners of the world with the distance and comfort of ‘plausible deniability.’” 6 Instead, the document and the code together underscore that connections between state clients and companies are not obscured. As such, existing humanitarian law and human rights obligations apply. Additionally, these efforts stress a defensive role for PMSCs. 7 This means that offensive operations and the political implications involved in seizing ground or control rest in the hands of uniformed state forces.
Canada places great weight on these initiatives, being one of the negotiating parties of the Montreux Document, and one of its seventeen original signatories. At the time of this writing, there are fifty-eight signatories, and the document has the support of the EU, NATO, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. And in December 2016, Canada became a state member to the governing International Code of Conduct Association (ICoCA). It is one of only seven states to hold this leadership role. This position allows Canada to help “govern and oversee implementation of the…[ICoC] to promote the responsible provision of security services and respect for human rights and national and international law in accordance with the Code.” 8
Canada also contributes to a transparent, legally compliant, and defensive industry by serving as an example through its own practices. In 2008, the Privy Council's Office and what was then the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade concluded that the Department of National Defence (DND), given its reliance upon firms in Afghanistan and elsewhere, should develop PMSC-centric policy in keeping with the Montreux Document. The result was the 2010 National Defence Directive on the Selection and Use of Private Military and Security Contractors on Deployed Operations. The directive formalizes DND's PMSC utilization by linking it to other departmental and Treasury Board guidance and policies regarding service contracting. 9 Through ongoing demand and the need for open competitive contracting in the Canadian system, sanctioned linkages exist. Furthermore, the directive identifies that PMSC usage may engage Canadian legal responsibility related to the law of armed combat and international human rights law. As such, the directive speaks to training, vetting, contracting, and oversight requirements to actualize this responsibility and minimize the possibility of transgressions. 10 Finally, the directive is limited to “the protection, guarding, and surveillance of persons and of assets.” 11 Plainly put, “[i]t is Canadian Forces policy not to contract PMSCs…for any tasks entailing the offensive use of force.” 12
Therefore, Wagner Group is anathema to Canadian policy and practice. It is not surprising that foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly uses the term “private military organization” rather than PMSC in reference to Wagner Group. 13 Russia, which has not signed the Montreux Document, has long exploited Wagner Group's nebulous status. 14 Back in 2011, Russian state-owned media reported that then prime minister Vladimir Putin labelled “such companies…[as] a way of implementing national interests without the direct involvement of the state.” 15 Actualized in the contemporary African context, Foreign Minister Lavrov emphasizes that Wagner Group works “on a commercial basis” and, as such, “has nothing to do with the Russian state.” 16 Regarding state clients, Lavrov supports the sovereign right of African governments to enter into contracts. Non-state clients like Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army, assign responsibility to the Haftar-controlled and Tobruk-based House of Representatives. 17 Overall, the chair of the UN working group on the use of mercenaries, Sorcha MacLeod, summarizes that Wagner Group “operates in a situation of opacity, there's a real lack of transparency, and that's the whole point.” 18
These blurred connections mean not only that Moscow can seek certain ends in Africa, but that it can also distance itself from the often harsh and illegal means employed by Wagner Group, of which there are many reported examples. For instance, a UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission assesses that a 1,200 strong Wagner Group force, alongside its Libyan allies, “may have violated the international humanitarian law principle of proportionality as well as the customary international humanitarian law obligations to minimize the indiscriminate effects of landmines and to remove them at the end of active hostilities.” 19 Since 1,000 Wagner Group personnel were stationed in Mali from late 2021, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) documented a “significant surge in gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian law” instigated by Malian soldiers, “accompanied by Russian elements in many instances.” 20 In the wake of the 2,300 Russian “trainers” and “advisors” who have arrived in the Central African Republic (CAR) since 2017, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights has “reports of mass summary executions, arbitrary detentions, torture during interrogations, forced disappearances, forced displacement of the civilian population, indiscriminate targeting of civilian facilities, violations of the right to health, and increasing attacks on humanitarian actors.” 21
Many of these reported transgressions have occurred in the context of offensive operations in which Wagner Group has led or supported local forces. This has sometimes involved the use of military equipment not normally associated with PMSCs, such as fighter jets and attack helicopters. The targets of this violence have included insurgent and terrorist groups and, in Libya's case, government forces. Amongst the goals for this offensive violence is the seizing of resource-producing areas, a matter to which this article now turns.
Resource extraction
The commercial importance of Africa in Canada's resource extraction activities overseas cannot be understated. Almost half of the world's publicly listed mining and mineral exploration countries call Canada home. In terms of value, approximately two thirds of Canadian mining assets are located abroad. 22 After South America, Africa ranks second in asset value, at a considerable C$37.1 billion. 23
It follows that Ottawa is concerned that Canadian investments in Africa and elsewhere are secured and sustained in a manner that promotes predictability, reduces risk, and is in line with Canadian interests and values. In this context, Canada in 2009 became a state participant in the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights Initiative and, later, its chair in 2011–2012 and 2016–2017. The initiative promotes and builds upon the Voluntary Principles, which were launched in 2000 as a multi-stakeholder initiative involving states, oil, gas, and mining companies, and non-governmental organizations for the purpose of ensuring that resource extraction security operates in a prescribed and responsible manner.
One third of the principles concern privately supplied security. And echoing the previous section, the principles advance a private military and security industry that is defensively oriented in its relations with extractive companies: Consistent with their function, private security should provide only preventative and defensive services and should not engage in activities [that are] exclusively the responsibility of state military or law enforcement authorities. Companies should designate services, technology, and equipment capable of offensive and defensive purposes as being for defensive use only.
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While, like Canada, Russia has commercial interests in African resource extraction, geo-economic and geo-strategic motivations inform Russia's stance too. On the commercial side, Russian extraction of African aluminum, diamonds, gold, nickel, uranium, and other minerals reflects either minimal availability in Russian territory or the remoteness, harsh climates, and lack of development in the domestic regions in which they exist. 26 As for geo-economic and geo-strategic rationales, Russia's “pivot to Africa” following its first military foray into Ukraine a decade ago is informative. The pivot allows Moscow to avoid isolation by cultivating friendly relations with African states, sustain a global presence as a great power, displace Western influence, and generate new revenue opportunities to compensate for the sanctions it faces.
In this context, the Russian state and a Wagner Group-linked network operate together. Diplomatically, Russian officials initiate military cooperation deals and prioritize quid pro quo mining concession agreements. 27 Practically, Wagner Group and associated companies provide regime security and military training to augment efforts to seize control over mining areas in rebel hands. Associated companies manage the mining, which leads to rent extractions that partially finance the group's presence. As such, analysis points to Wagner Group operations in Mali often being co-located with diamond mining areas. 28 In CAR, Wagner Group and associated firms are connected to both industrial gold mining and the management of artisanal operations. 29 There are also reports of artisanal miners being attacked by Wagner Group personnel, either to push them out or for the sake of plunder. 30 As well, closely following Wagner Group's 2017 engagement in Sudan, the associated company M Invest and subsidiaries Meroe Gold and Al-Solag launched operations which, in turn, have led to accusations of them smuggling billions of US dollars in gold. 31
These interactions between the Russian state, Wagner Group, and extraction companies undermine Canadian expectations about both how mining should be conducted and protected and how licencing for exploration and extraction globally is competed over. Moreover, Russian-African relationships may come at the cost of existing Canadian arrangements. For instance, in 2020, CAR officials revoked the twenty-five year licence the Canadian firm Axmin held over the Ndassima gold mine located in the Bambari region. Despite Axmin's commitment to the region since 2006, the CAR government awarded a twenty-five year concession to Midas Resources, an entity linked to Wagner Group (and one targeted in the US's post-mutiny sanctions). 32
Looking to the future, problematic developments and probabilities may inhibit Canadian extractive opportunities and projects. Recent changes to the Malian mining code, for example, permit expanded Russian extraction activities. 33 This may prove troublesome for Canada given that Mali is the locale for the greatest value of Canadian mining assets in Western Africa. 34 On a wider scale, as Russia's costly war against Ukraine continues and sanctions increasingly bite, alternative resources, supporting relationships, and the continual erosion of Western influence in Africa will likely become even more valuable to Moscow. Recent RAND analysis reveals that many African governments would be attractive for, and attracted to, a Wagner Group-type Russian presence. 35 Furthermore, the diplomatic architecture for expansion is already in place. Russia presently has twenty-eight military cooperation agreements with African states, most of them established since Russia's initial foray into Ukraine in 2014. 36
United Nations
Whether viewed as means or ends, the UN is a bedrock of Canadian policymaking. In terms of means, the UN, as a vehicle for multilateralism, provides Canada with some degree of order and predictability in international affairs. Global Affairs Canada makes this plain: “The commitment to multilateralism is the cornerstone of Canada's foreign policy and the United Nations is our most important forum for that commitment.” 37 As Canada is not a great power, the mere fact that there is a UN helps to level the playing field vis-à-vis stronger states. In terms of ends, Canada has supported UN peacekeeping as one way to contribute to international peace and security. Though Canada's peacekeeping contributions have quantitatively declined since the late 1990s, over 125,000 Canadian military personnel have served on UN peacekeeping operations and Canada has provided guidance and expertise to other peacekeeping contributors. 38 As for the UN Security Council, yes, Canada has failed in two recent attempts to win a non-permanent seat. Nevertheless, these efforts accentuate the importance Canada places on the council as the primary authorizer and legitimizer of multilateral peace enforcement and reflects Canada's desire to help guide it.
Against this backdrop, Russia's usage of Wagner Group in Africa chips away at this bedrock. To expand, longstanding UN peacekeeping policy features the need to maintain and extend state authority.
39
National armed forces in countries hosting peacekeepers are a symbolic and functional manifestation of that authority and are expected to be reliable partners for the United Nations. Wagner Group, as a foreign actor, upends this internally focused calculus. Moreover, Wagner Group, given its significant relationships with national governments, has limited the ability of peacekeepers to operate. For instance, Wagner Group, alongside national forces, has obstructed and sidelined the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA). An authority no less than UN Secretary General António Guterres reported the following in June 2021: I am deeply troubled by the unacceptable and unprecedented increase in hostile threats and incidents by the national security forces and bilaterally deployed [i.e., Wagner Group] and other security personnel targeting MINUSCA, which obstruct mandate delivery and pose grave risks to the safety and security of peacekeepers. Such actions contravene the commitments of the Government as part of the status-of-forces agreement.
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In addition to the restrictions and the revocation of sovereign permissions is the fear that peacekeeping operations will become implicated in activities assisted by Wagner Group. This is no small matter given the reported transgressions identified above. For example, in a March 2021 press release on CAR, the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights expressed concern about “coordinated meetings with ‘Russian advisors,’ their presence at MINUSCA bases, as well as medical evacuations of wounded ‘Russian trainers’ to MINUSCA bases.” 42 Such interactions spark worries that UN peacekeepers themselves might be targeted by various rebel actors, or that they are somehow giving licence to other forces that do not respect human rights and humanitarian law (as so identified in the UN's own reports).
Further erosion of the Canadian bedrock occurs at the level of the UN Security Council. From one standpoint, Wagner Group allows for Russian great power duplicity as a permanent council member working against UN directed and supported initiatives. In the case of Libya, UN Security Council Resolution 1973, adopted in 2011, indicates that all member states are to support an arms embargo. 43 The deployment of weapons by Wagner Group as substantial as Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jets and Sukhoi Su-24 tactical bombers, items normally found in only state arsenals, indicates embargo breakage. As well, a mediated agreement through the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) in 2020 called for all foreign forces to leave by January 2021, yet Wagner Group personnel have remained.
From another perspective, Russia uses its sway as a permanent council member to establish, protect, and maintain Wagner Group's presence in Africa. For instance, in December 2017, Russia negotiated an exception to the 2013 arms embargo on CAR to re-equip the country's armed forces. A separate military training agreement, set in 2018, meant that Wagner Group personnel would be present to train the CAR military on the exempted weapons. Subsequent reports indicate that Wagner Group personnel have, in fact, been equipped with this weaponry (ranging from pistols to anti-aircraft guns). 44 As well, Russia has used its status on the council to block the reappointment of UN independent monitors and stymie investigations into Wagner Group's conduct. For example, in 2022, Russia thwarted a US-initiated inquiry into abuses linked to Wagner Group personnel and the CAR military. Similarly, for Mali, Russia terminated council efforts for an independent investigation following a March 2022 incident at Moura tied to Wagner Group and Malian forces which resulted in three hundred casualties, the bulk of them civilians. Taken together, these cases undermine the UN Security Council as a stable and engaged hand in supporting international peace and security as so wished by Canada.
Next steps?
As Canadian interests regarding security privatization, commercial extraction, and the UN are clearly being impacted by Wagner Group, it begs the question as to what Canada's response will be vis-à-vis Africa. It stands to reason that any future policy directions will be guided by Canada's Africa Policy Framework, a document still in draft form at the time of writing. This framework should provide policymakers with renewed focus, an important development given criticism that Canada has a “longstanding pattern of consistent inconsistency towards the continent.” 45 Moreover, the geopolitical stakes of great power competition in Africa, alongside possible economic losses for Canada as well as the risks of increased and unhinged violence, negate the luxury of being consistently inconsistent.
A Canadian response to Wagner Group in Africa will, however, entail some uncomfortable choices. One issue is Ottawa reconciling its position with Washington's approach. The US expects its Western allies to become more deeply engaged and committed in Africa in order to eject Wagner Group. 46 However, it is also clear that Washington's approach is zero sum, as the US denies security force assistance to African countries hosting Wagner Group. As stressed by Victoria Nuland, the US State Department's Undersecretary for Political Affairs, the US is “just not going to operate in the same space, even if we were invited to or able to do so.” 47
In contrast, the Canadian approach has been one of engagement. In Mali, while other states have removed their forces, contingents of the Canadian military and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police remain. 48 Withdrawal, according to Bruno Charbonneau of Royal Military College Saint-Jean, would have been an “overreaction.” 49 Though Canada levelled sanctions against Mali in 2018 under a UN Security Council Resolution, unlike other states, it has not followed through with specific sanctioning related to Wagner Group. While Ottawa ended its support for French counter-insurgent activities when Paris announced its withdrawal in February 2022, it nevertheless renewed its peacekeeping engagement in Mali the following month. As such, Canadian self-limitation has permitted continued interaction with Malian authorities regarding Wagner Group, as indicated by a GAC spokesperson: “[Canada has expressed its concerns] on multiple occasions, especially our concerns related to their impact on peace and stability and on the respect of human rights, and we will continue to do so.” 50 Also, enhanced engagement and broadening coalitions of states underscores the drafting of the Africa Policy Framework. As contended by Rob Oliphant, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs responsible for the framework, Canada is well placed to engage differently: “We don’t have those colonial vestiges; even the new colonialism of a US or a China, or a Russia, or Turkey. We’re seen as someone who will be respectful and engage at that level.” 51
Regarding African countries that have not called upon Wagner Group, the nature of Canada's foreign security sector engagement may conflict with the US approach. Burkina Faso, which suffered two coups in 2022, is a case in point. Despite US regulations that limit military support for states that have suffered coups, the US State Department indicates that counter-terrorism efforts could be the conduit for continued engagement to ensure that Wagner Group cannot get a foothold in Burkina Faso. 52 As a contrasting example, Canada scaled down its military training in Mali after some Canadian-trained personnel were involved in a counter-coup in 2012. Subsequent Canadian security sector interactions have been shorter and, arguably, less impactful. From one angle, shorter arrangements do not allow for trust to develop or for more complex issues regarding the security sector and democracy to be addressed and instilled. From another angle, these interactions limit the potential for criticism should Canadian-trained foreign personnel become involved in coups. No doubt, the US will need and pressure Western partners in Africa, like Canada, both to shoulder their share of the burden and deprive Russia and Wagner Group the operational oxygen needed to survive, thrive, and expand. 53 Ottawa will have to be savvy of the different approaches towards civil-military relations and democracy promotion that could give Moscow a handhold. 54
Whether responding to Washington's pushes or African partners looking for engagement, Ottawa will have to confront the need to accept greater risk in Canadian military deployments. Canada's military presence in Africa, whether assessed bilaterally or multilaterally through organizations like the UN, is comparatively smaller than that of other Western states. Moreover, recent Canadian efforts in Africa have been described as risk averse in terms of the areas of operation selected, the less complicated political environments chosen, and the capabilities provided. This approach informs a “just enough” mentality. 55 However, the metrics for what constitutes just enough for Canada will now be challenged, not only by a US looking for more, but also by the higher and zero-sum stakes of great power competition and African states that now have an alternative to Western-provided assistance through Wagner Group.
Conclusions
When she served as foreign affairs minister in 2017, Canada's now deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, advanced that Canada “can and must play an active role in the preservation and strengthening of the global order from which we have benefited so greatly.” 56 Clearly, Wagner Group's activities in Africa, at the behest of a disruptive great power competitor, erode that global order. Any potential benefit to Canada is hampered by the upending of norms and expectations pertaining to non-state actors and violence, the uncertainty introduced into commercial mineral extraction relationships, and the undermining of the UN and its African peacekeeping operations. Yet Canada playing an active role in this matter will be no easy thing. Great power competition heightens the stakes and provides African states with alternatives to Western engagement. As well, Canada's African efforts and activism will come under focus as the US demands more from its allies and does things that are different from the usual Canadian approach.
Following from these findings, future research might explore reasons that would heighten the urgency and substantiveness of Wagner Group's presence in Africa. One important matter is the degree to which Russia can extract resources and diplomatic sustenance from supporters and enablers such as China and the United Arab Emirates as the Russian “special military operation” against Ukraine continues. Should these relationships whither, either due to the negative ramifications of Russian military actions or Western (particularly US) diplomatic and economic initiatives, Russian attention may become even more focused on African resources and backing. Another matter to consider at the time of writing is the particular spread of instability in Francophone Africa and whether Wagner Group might fill the void. Because the US often relies upon Canada in Francophone Africa due to Canada's history and language capabilities, Washington might apply further (uncomfortable) pressure upon Canada to act in its preferred ways. 57 Overall, given the assessment of the UN's MacLeod that African countries have come under Wagner Group's sway like falling dominoes, it stands to reason that Canadian policymakers will be put to the test as the great game intensifies. 58
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author Biography
Christopher Spearin is a professor in the Department of Defence Studies of the Royal Military College of Canada located at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto. The views expressed in the article are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect those of the Canadian Department of National Defence or the Government of Canada.