Russia is offering governments in Africa a "regime survival package" in exchange for access to strategically important natural resources, a major new report has found.
Internal Russian government documents, seen by the BBC, also detail how it is working to change mining laws in West Africa, with the ambition of dislodging Western companies from an area of strategic importance.
This is part of the process of the Russian government taking over the businesses of the Wagner mercenary group, broken up after a failed coup in June 2023.
The multibillion-dollar operations are now mostly being run by the Russian "Expeditionary Corps", managed by the man accused of being behind the attempt to murder Sergei Skripal using the Novichok nerve agent on the streets of the UK - a charge Russia has denied.
"This is the Russian state coming out of the shadows in its Africa policy," says Jack Watling, land warfare specialist at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) and one of the report's authors.
Back in June 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin was probably the most feared and famous mercenary in the world. His Wagner Group was in control of billions of dollars' worth of companies and projects, while his fighters were central to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Then, he decided to march on Moscow, ostensibly calling for the removal of the defence minister and head of the general staff, but in reality threatening President Vladimir Putin in a way no-one had before.
Within weeks he had died in a highly suspicious plane crash, along with much of the Wagner leadership. There was widespread speculation at the time about what would happen to the Wagner Group. Now, we have the answer.
According to Dr Watling, "there was a meeting in the Kremlin fairly shortly after Prigozhin's mutiny, in which it was decided that Wagner's Africa operations would fall directly under the control of Russian military intelligence, the GRU".
Control was to be handed to Gen Andrey Averyanov, head of Unit 29155, a secretive operation specializing in targeting killings and destabilising foreign governments.
But it seems Gen Averyanov's new business was not destabilizing governments, but rather securing their future, as long as they paid by signing away their mineral rights.
In early September, accompanied by deputy Defence Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Gen Averyanov began a tour of former Wagner operations in Africa.
They started in Libya, meeting warlord Gen Khalifa Haftar. Their next stop was Burkina Faso where they were greeted by 35-year-old coup leader Ibrahim Traoré.
After that, they landed in the Central African Republic, possibly the most well-established Wagner operation on the continent, before heading to Mali to meet the leaders of the junta there.
On a subsequent trip they also met General Salifou Modi, one of the military men who seized power in Niger last year.
Readouts of the various meetings demonstrate that the two men were reassuring Wagner's partners on the continent that the demise of Prigozhin did not mean the end of his business deals.
Reports of the meeting with Capt Traoré of Burkina Faso confirmed cooperation would continue in "the military domain, including the training of Burkinabe officer cadets and officers at all levels, including pilots in Russia".
In short, the death of Prigozhin did not mean the end for the junta's relationship with Russia. In some ways, it would become deeper still.
The three West African states with close links to Wagner - Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso - have all experienced military takeovers in recent years. They have since announced their withdrawal from the regional bloc Ecowas, and the creation of their own "Alliance of Sahel States".
Maybe the most entwined with the mercenaries was Mali, where an ongoing Islamist insurgency, combined with multiple coups, had left an essentially failed state.
Previously, security assistance had come in the form of the UN mission known as Minusma, alongside the French military's long-running counter-insurgency operation.
But there was no particular fondness for France, the former colonial power, and so when the Wagner group offered to replace their security operations with Russian backing, the offer was accepted.
"The French were tolerated, rather than welcomed," says Edwige Sorgho-Depagne, an analyst of African politics who works for Amber Advisers.
"The French mandate to help in the terror crisis in the Sahel was always regarded as limited in time. So, the fact that the French stayed for that long - over 10 years - without finding a way to end the crisis didn't help".
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