Russia withdraws combat forces from another continent to fuel its latest offensive in Ukraine, Western intelligence says

• Russia has withdrawn its combat forces from Africa to support its new offensive in the Kharkiv region.

• Africa Corps units have recently been deployed to fight alongside other Russian forces, Western intelligence said.

• The Russian Africa Corps was created last year and is made up of former Wagner Group mercenaries.

Russia has moved some combat forces from Africa to help support its latest offensive efforts in northeastern Ukraine, according to a new assessment by Western intelligence services.

Over the past week, Moscow has deployed units of its Africa Corps to fight around Vovchansk, a small town in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region that has been the center of intense fighting in recent days, the British Ministry of Defense wrote. Defense in an intelligence update Friday.

The Russian Defense Ministry created the Africa Corps last year to expand its presence on the continent as well as in the Middle East. The military formation, which shares the same name as a Nazi unit from World War II, consists of more than 2,000 regulars, officers and mercenaries, many of whom once served in the famous Wagner Group.

In Ukraine, Africa Corps units were deployed alongside regular Russian military forces and Storm-Z penal units made up of convicts and soldiers facing disciplinary charges to support the ongoing offensive in Kharkiv, noted the British Ministry of Defence.

The Russian Defense Ministry “almost certainly redeployed Africa Corps detachments to the Ukrainian border in April 2024 in preparation for this offensive,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. “It is very likely that Russia will strengthen its war against Ukraine with resources previously allocated to Africa.”

Other African Corps detachments are believed to have been deployed to Syria, Libya, Burkina Faso and Niger, the UK said.

The Wagner Group – which long operated as an obscure extension of the Russian foreign policy apparatus until its involvement in the Ukraine war thrust the mercenaries into the spotlight – has a history of activity in these country. The organization has also been accused of committing various atrocities and human rights violations across Africa.

Russia has moved to exert more control over Wagner in the year since the failed mercenary mutiny last June, sparked by grievances over the war in Ukraine. Moscow’s grip on the ruthless organization only tightened when its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a still-mysterious plane crash two months later.

The recent deployment of some Africa Corps units in the Kharkiv region appears to underline Russia’s commitment to its new offensive.

Earlier this month, after amassing tens of thousands of troops near the border, Russia launched an assault in the region in an attempt to create a buffer zone near its territory.

The limited incursion also aims to expand Ukraine’s weak forces across the sprawling front line and block kyiv’s defensive efforts around Kharkiv, perhaps signaling the start of what could be a multi-pronged summer offensive.

Nearly two weeks after the start of the offensive, Russia has conquered a small part of the territory along the border and is moving closer to Vovchansk, which before the war had more than 17,000 inhabitants.

The city has been at the heart of brutal fighting and suffered devastating bomb strikes from Moscow. Images shared on social media show widespread destruction.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in an update shared on Facebook on Friday that Russia had carried out several assaults in the direction of Kharkiv, but that kyiv’s troops were fighting back and were able to repel the attacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Kharkiv on Friday, where he held meetings on the battlefield situation and received information on defensive operations around Vovchansk.

He wrote in an article on X that “we paid special attention to the housing needs of our displaced people from the territories of the Kharkiv region targeted by enemy shelling.”

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