The Wagner Group, the mercenary army run by Vladimir Putin’s ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, is instrumental to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But Wagner has also been on the offensive across Africa.

After failing in Mozambique, the group has sunk roots into the Central Africa Republic and embraced juntas if not masterminded their coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. In each of these four cases, Wagner takes advantage of the implosion of French influence. While it seeks to loot each country’s rich natural resources, an activity in which France also participated in decades past, Wagner mercenaries are also willing to do what the French advisers will not. In Mali, for example, that includes targeting ethnic Fulanis and other gross human rights violations.