In 2019, I travelled to Berengo Palace, outside Bangui, to interview Russian mercenaries. Once the home of Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the Central African Republic’s self-crowned emperor, it was now occupied by fighters from the Wagner Group. One of the first things they told me was not about the country they had come to defend, but the country they had left.
Seven years later, Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is dead. In the Sahel, Wagner has given way to Africa Corps, controlled by Russia’s Ministry of Defence. Moscow is fighting a war in Ukraine, where Africans have been recruited, some under false pretences.
An investigation by Journalists for Justice documented 502 African deaths by June 2026. In Douala, Cameroon, I met Mama Regina, her eyes bloodshot as she held back tears. Her son Moses had gone to Russia to fight.
His portrait hung on the wall. Like so many families, she is waiting for his body. Once again, Africans are mourning men lost in someone else’s war on another continent far away from home.
In grief, some have turned to a small but growing Russian Orthodox church. Its Cameroonian pastor was trained in St Petersburg. He says he is here to preach the “good news”.
African leaders are gathering in Moscow for the Russia-Africa Summit. In 2019, 43 African heads of state or government attended the first summit in Sochi. In St Petersburg in 2023, after Russia invaded Ukraine, only 17 heads of state came.
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