Last weekend, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi offered the United States and Europe access to his country’s vast mineral wealth in return for intervention to end a spiraling Rwandan-backed insurgency in the eastern Congo, a region rich in natural resources with over half of global cobalt reserves. The offer represents an opportunity for the United States and other Western democratic partners to deepen relations with Kinshasa, gain access to critical minerals, partially mitigate fallout of recent Western retreat from the Sahel, and stem rising authoritarian influence in Africa. Such a win-win deal would be consistent with a US Africa strategy that “puts America and its interests first.” But there is another dimension that should not be ignored: if the United States does not “get to yes” with Kinshasa, there is a large risk that it could turn to Russia.
Tshisekedi’s minerals-for-peace offer comes amid declining Western influence, and growing Russian influence, in the region. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a likely target of Russian intervention on the continent for three reasons: the country’s historical ties to Moscow, its frustration with current international intervention amid a worsening insurgency, and its abundance of natural resources.
Russian Influence in Africa: Poised to Bounce Back in 2025
By the end of 2024, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the grinding military stalemate in Ukraine led many observers, including us, to assume that Russian influence in Africa would suffer as a result, with Wagner mercenaries and Africa Corps troops hitting a ceiling in Africa sooner or later. What a difference a month can make. Set against the new US administration’s freeze on foreign aid in Africa and early concessions to Russia in opening negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine War, Moscow’s influence in Africa looks poised to deepen in 2025, not shrink.
Earlier this month, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched a new Department for Partnership with Africa to great fanfare. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signaled that Russia would increase strategic and economic cooperation on the continent, noting that the scope of the department’s work “will expand significantly in the near future,” as Russia has recently opened new embassies in Burkina Faso and Equatorial Guinea and by 2026 has plans to open new embassies in Gambia, Liberia, Comoros, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Togo.
Despite losses in Ukraine and Syria, Russia’s military footprint in Africa has been growing as Moscow has capitalized on anti-French sentiment and Western withdrawals across the Sahel and West Africa. According to our calculations using data from the Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity Index, though Russia has the least economic influence capacity in Africa among major powers, it has the most security influence capacity on the continent due to significant arms sales.
In mid-February, with the future status of Russian access to the Tartus naval facility in Syria unclear, Russian and Sudanese officials reached a deal that would see Moscow gain a naval base in Port Sudan—a longstanding objective for Russia that will give it Red Sea access from Africa. The Tartus base has been a critical asset to Moscow, as in recent years it has been Russia’s only naval base near the region that could serve as a key logistics hub to resupply its forces deployed to Africa, particularly those in Libya. A Russian naval port on the African continent allows Moscow to continue to grow its influence and presence in Africa.
After years of counterterrorism support from primarily France and the United States, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have all pivoted away from Western governments in exchange for Russian security support. These countries have made drastic changes to their internal security dynamics, even going as far as expelling French diplomats and rebuking US assistance. In early 2025, French withdrawals have already occurred in Chad and Côte d’Ivoire, with Senegal set to follow soon.
Russian security support—previously by way of the Wagner Group, now rebranded and incorporated into the Russian military and called Africa Corps—is not restricted to the Sahel and West Africa. Africa Corps has longstanding presence in Africa’s northern and central regions in Libya, the Central African Republic, and previously to the south in Mozambique—even though the latter resulted in a withdrawal after the group took multiple causalities.
Three Reasons the DRC is Ripe for Russian Malign Interference
Russia’s blueprint for projecting influence in Africa is relatively straightforward: support juntas with so-called counterterrorism support, sow anti-Western sentiment, and exploit the region’s minerals to fund other priorities. Although Russia had the least foreign influence among major powers in the DRC (per the Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity Index ) as late as 2023, that country could be the Kremlin’s next target.
The DRC’s profile fits the Africa playbook Russia has followed to date. Like countries in the Sahel region, domestic security forces have been unable to contain the threat of violent armed groups. The host country cannot secure areas where an armed organization—in the Sahel it was ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates, while in the DRC it is the M23 rebels—has taken control of large swaths of territory, wreaked havoc on local populations, and overwhelmed local security forces. The DRC is in need of a patron, and Russia may step in for three reasons.
Reason 1: The DRC’s Historic Ties to Moscow
The historical ties between Moscow and Kinshasa are perhaps some of the strongest on the continent. The relationship dates back to the country’s origin and its first democratically elected leader Patrice Lumumba—who was supported by the Soviet Union before his assassination. The DRC’s armed forces also use a host of Soviet-era military equipment, to include most of its tanks, which are T-55s and T-72s. Last March, unconfirmed media reports surfaced that Russia and the DRC had signed a military agreement, motivated by a desire for mercenaries to counter the rising M23 insurgency in the eastern Congo. In the DRC city of Goma, “enthusiasm is palpable for the ‘Russians,’” the Moscow Times reported last May. However, the mercenaries deployed were actually Romanian. But as other eastern European mercenaries falter, the DRC may actually turn to Russia soon.
Reason 2: DRC’s Frustration with International Intervention
Despite hosting one of the largest peacekeeping missions in history, armed groups like ISIS–Central Africa (formerly the Allied Democratic Forces) have operated mostly unchecked in the DRC for decades. Tshisekedi expressed his frustration over the UN mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) in 2023—exclaiming that the UN has been present in the country for a quarter of a century but that it failed to bring stability to the region.
In fact, the region is a powder keg. Since participants in the 1994 Rwandan genocide fled into the DRC, Rwanda has intermittently intervened there, in part to protect ethnic Tutsi communities. While conflict has ebbed and flowed for decades, fighting in this region has intensified over the past several months, culminating with the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group taking control of the city of Goma and, more recently, Bukavu.
The rebel advance comes amid plans to drawdown MONUSCO’s presence and hand responsibility for the mission to Kinshasa. The M23 group, originally stood up in 2012, has seen recent successes since reconstituting in 2023 and the DRC armed forces have struggled to reign in the group. The DRC military faces a host of security challenges in the country’s eastern region and has historically performed relatively poorly owing to a host of reasons—but in part because the region is physically isolated from Kinshasa (about a forty-five-hour drive). By comparison, the eastern Kivu provinces border Rwanda and are close to its capital Kigali.
Some experts have criticized the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union for a “romance” with Kagame, claiming that the West has failed to hold Kigali accountable in more recent years because of guilt over its inaction during the 1994 genocide; it is likely Kinshasa views the situation similarly.
Reason 3: Abundance of Natural Resources in DRC
In the Sahel, Russia is exploiting the gold mines in part to fund its war in Ukraine and evade sanctions. Over a year and a half between 2022 and 2023, Russia earned $2.5 billion in gold coming out of Africa—to include, Mali, Sudan, and the Central Africa Republic. The DRC has untapped gold mines, among other resources that Russia would benefit from gaining access to.
The conflict in the DRC is not solely about ethnic agendas and regional influence. In the eastern regions of the DRC natural resources are abundant and play a large role in the fighting. A host of armed groups seek to control the valuable coltan and cobalt mines, which are used in the production of batteries, smartphones, and electric vehicles. Both the Congolese government and armed groups benefit from the mines, using the profits to finance fighting. New reports indicate the Rwandans might also be pillaging mines and illegally exporting resources back to Rwanda.
Russia has an obvious motive to go into the DRC, and the DRC is desperate for more assistance and support to bring stability and security to the region—as indicated by Tshisekedi’s mineral access offer to the United States and Europe. Perhaps a Western, democratic partner steps forward first. But if not, Russian boots may hit the ground in eastern DRC. Given what has followed Russian intervention across the Sahel, that isn’t likely to end well.
Haleigh Bartos is an associate professor of the practice in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. She has fifteen years of experience working to support policy and analyzing national security issues. She teaches courses on policy writing and national security at Carnegie Mellon University, including Writing for Political Science and Policy, Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa, and In the News: Analysis of Current National Security Priorities.
John Chin is an assistant teaching professor of political science in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology. He is the lead author of the Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups D’état (2022), which was named one of the “Best Historical Materials” published in 2022–23 by the American Library Association.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Jorkim Jotham Pituwa, MONUSCO