After Ukraine: The peace dividend Africa does not want

For the last four years, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has seemed a long way from African capitals. Despite some aftershocks, such as rising food and fuel prices, African countries largely avoided being dragged into the conflict.

But a crisis might be barrelling down the road. When the war in Ukraine ends, an immense surplus of military capacity—stockpiled weapons, expert drone pilots, and hardened, often traumatised military contractors—will suddenly be released onto the global market. If history is anything to judge by, African countries will absorb a sizeable amount of this surplus, significantly increasing the risk and intensity of conflict on the continent.

Learning from the past

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, vast stockpiles of weapons entered global circulation and illicit arms networks expanded across African conflict zones through intermediaries such as Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer later imprisoned in America.

Major conflicts also tend to release large numbers of trained fighters onto the market. After apartheid in South Africa and the end of white-minority rule in Rhodesia, former soldiers became active in conflicts and coup attempts across the continent, including through private military companies such as South African Executive Outcomes. 

Illicit arms and military expertise can rapidly migrate into African conflicts

More recently, Colombian mercenaries with counter-insurgency experience have reportedly appeared in Sudan. These precedents highlight a persistent risk: illicit arms and military expertise can rapidly migrate into African conflicts. The UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) estimates that around 40% of the 40m small arms circulating in Africa are illicit.

Meanwhile, Russia has been building up a pool of battle-tested African fighters. A stream of recent reports has uncovered trafficking networks bringing thousands of African men and women into frontline positions or slave-like conditions in Russian armament factories. Many of these people will eventually return home.

Russia’s and Ukraine’s war economies

The current war is producing that surplus of arms and expertise on a mass scale.Both Russia and Ukraine have mobilised millions of soldiers and dramatically expanded industrial production of cheap weapons like hand-held drones. Both countries are also under immense economic strain from the war. Ukraine’s economy has been devastated, but a peace deal would likely unlock tens of billions of euros in European-led reconstruction funding, giving demobilised Ukrainian soldiers reason to stay home rather than seek work elsewhere.

Russia faces a harder path. Its wartime economic model—heavy military spending, labour shortages, state intervention—may prove hard to unwind after the conflict. Sanctions and a limited pool of willing economic partners make large-scale reconstruction or stimulus unlikely. This may incentivise Moscow to cash in on its comparative advantage: arms and security services.

Impact on Africa

Up until 2024, Russia had signed military cooperation and technical agreements with 43 African states.  In May 2026, Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms-export agency, revealed $20bn in spending on 150 military-technical cooperation agreements across 46 African countries. 

The extent of Russian involvement in African security solutions and the scope of military and defence investments become clearer when the private sector is factored in. The Wagner Group and its successor, Africa Corps, already maintain thousands of fighters on the continent and have been implicated in severe abuses in countries like Mali.

President Vladimir Putin, who has already survived an armed mutiny (by the late Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in June 2023), may see advantages in keeping large numbers of demobilised fighters and military contractors occupied abroad rather than allowing them to return home en masse.

Ukraine could become part of this story too. Kyiv has few military agreements in Africa and will likely retain a huge standing army long after any ceasefire. But after years of being banned from travelling abroad, some demobilised Ukrainian soldiers will inevitably seek to monetise their battlefield experience. Reports have already linked Ukrainian contractors to Sudan, while allegations have surfaced of Ukrainians training Tuareg fighters in drone operations. The scale remains limited, but the precedent matters.

Some African governments will, of course, be keen for this excess military capacity—for regime security, among other reasons. But many others will shudder at cutting-edge military know-how and equipment falling into the hands of insurgents or terrorist groups. 

A shared interest in stability

Some African and European interests may align here. European governments certainly do not want any more instability in their southern neighbourhood as they try to shore up the eastern flank against Russia, manage a belligerent, unpredictable White House in the west, and shore up security in the eastern Mediterranean.

Like-minded African and European governments should prepare for a scenario in which large volumes of illicit arms and military capacity flow out of Russia and Ukraine into African conflict zones. European institutions have extensive experience countering arms trafficking and could deepen intelligence sharing with African governments, ports and border authorities. Such cooperation should extend to direct coordination with Ukrainian authorities, to prevent weapons or military expertise from falling into the wrong hands. 

The EU should also reinvest in existing frameworks such as the European Peace Facility, originally intended to support African security partnerships before the war in Ukraine redirected European priorities inward. At the same time, African governments should continue to strengthen pan-African institutions such as the African Union and its African Peace and Security Architecture as well as existing regional mechanisms. 

The scaffolding for regional cooperation exists and the continent’s capacity to build and sustain its own regional security architectures has been growing. The Nairobi Protocol and the Regional Centre on Small Arms (RECSA) provide one of Africa’s clearest examples of sustained regional cooperation against illicit arms trafficking. A 2026 UNIDIR–RECSA assessment found “clear progress” across member states in areas including weapons marking, stockpile management, record-keeping, and transfer controls over the past two decades. What remains is the political will to activate it before the end of one war lights the fuse for several others.