Last January, Madagascar politicians joined military officers at Ivato International Airport for the ceremonial start of new training exercises for the country’s 1st Airborne Battalion.
The ceremony marked the first phrase of a program overseen by Russian instructors. The effort also included a sizable cache of unspecified Russian weaponry being transferred to the Indian Ocean island nation.
Among the guests watching from a shaded pavilion was a Russian man wearing a white shirt and a blue tie: Anton Papshev, a naval officer with the Russian military intelligence agency known as GRU.
Anton Papshev, a naval officer with Russia's military intelligence agency, watching a ceremony launching Russian-Madagascar military training exercises in January 2026.
It wasn’t exactly clear when Papshev arrived in the country, which had been roiled in October by a coup that propelled a commander of an elite Madagascar military unit to power.
But a notorious Russian general who oversees GRU operations in Africa flew into Madagascar the month prior, along with 40 members of a Russian Defense Ministry mercenary group called Africa Corps, according to a flight manifest obtained by the research organization AEOW/INPACT in partnership with Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit.
Taken together, the events are the latest sign of Russia’s quiet inroads on the strategically located island – and the latest push by Moscow to cultivate influence across Africa.
In February, the month after the ceremony, Michael Randrianirina, the colonel who became interim president following the coup, traveled to Moscow, where he was met at the airport by Major General Andrei Averyanov -- the officer who had flown to Madagascar with the Africa Corps contingent.
Meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Randrianirina heartily welcomed the Russian presence in Madagascar: “In the social sphere, health care, education, as well as energy, hydrocarbons, infrastructure development, and, of course, the military sphere.”
From Mali To Madagascar
The effort in Madagascar comes as Russia’s wider push to cultivate economic and military ties across Africa produces mixed results.
The effort dates back at least a decade, when a brash Kremlin-connected restaurateur named Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in the Central African Republic and set up a sprawling and wildly lucrative business empire.
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Wagner's Successors Wage Campaign Of Terror In Central African RepublicIt centered on Prigozhin’s notorious mercenary company, Wagner Group, which was hired to provide security to CAR’s government and train its armed forces. In return, Prigozhin got access to gold, diamonds, timber, and other lucrative natural resources.
After Prigozhin staged an abortive mutiny and was killed in a suspicious August 2023 plane crash, his businesses were broken up and taken over by private businessmen.
Wagner was also broken up, with different contingents taken over by different military operations. Russia’s Defense Ministry took over one contingent, and rebranded it Africa Corps.
In the Central African Republic, parts of Prigozhin’s business ventures are still operating, and Russian military personnel occupy top posts in the government’s security agencies.
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Wagner Fanta: Russia's Defunct Mercenary Group Hopes To Make A Killing On Bottled WaterIn strife-torn Libya, Russia has backed a powerful warlord, Khalifa Haftar, and built a quiet presence.
However, in parts of the Sahel -- a region stretching across Africa south of the Sahara -- Africa Corps has had mixed success. In Mali, an Africa Corps contingent has filled a vacuum left when French troops were pushed out following a military coup. But the Russian troops have suffered numerous losses after attacks from rebel groups.
In Niger, Africa Corps units played a role in putting down a mutiny in August. Russian personnel are also involved in guarding some 1,000 tons of Nigerien uranium yellowcake which Nigerien authorities seized from a French-owned mine and have been trying to sell and export.
The yellowcake has been at the international airport in Niamey, Niger’s capital, for months.
'Special Services To The Congolese Nation'
A graduate of the Ushakov Naval Institute in Russia’s Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, Papshev’s training appears to largely focus on electronic communications. In 2009, he served as an assistant to the department head at a GRU unit called the 1237th Center for Strategic Radio-Electronic Intelligence, or military unit 25137.
Leaked databases show that Papshev’s family lives near a building in Moscow where GRU employees and relatives are known to reside.
A few years later, in 2013, Papshev was serving as a counselor at the Russian Embassy in South Africa, a post he held for five years.
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Russia Hoped Africa Corps Would Replicate Wagner's Success. It's Not Going Well.He then shifted to Ethiopia, where he served as assistant military attache at the embassy in Addis Ababa, until at least 2022. Another GRU officer, Yury Mikheyev, served alongside him.
As of last year, Papshev served with military unit 45807, also linked to the GRU. Among other things, that unit was involved in efforts to recruit Russian prison inmates to fight in the war against Ukraine, according to findings by RFE/RL’s Russian Service and Systema.
He’s also spent time in the Republic of the Congo.
Since January 2025, the Africa Corps has provided security for President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, who has ruled the country since 1979 with only a brief interruption. Russia’s activity in the Republic of the Congo intensified ahead of the March presidential election, which Sassou-Nguesso won again.
On October 30, 2025, the official government newspaper of the Central African nation announced that four Russian citizens had been awarded the Order of Merit, a special commendation.
A press release from the official government newspaper of the Republic of The Congo on October 30, 2025, announcing the award of four medals to Russian GRU officers.
Averyanov was one of those named, along with another officer, Aleksei Orekhov, who has accompanied GRU delegations on trips around Africa since 2023. Last year, Orekhov became head of the Russian general staff’s main department for international military cooperation.
Two other Russians were also listed as receiving awards: Mikheyev and Papshev.
Papshev, meanwhile, traveled to Madagascar as recently as July, flying from the Indian archipelago of the Seychelles.
According to documents obtained by AEOW, Papshev arrived on a privately rented jet accompanied by two Belarusian businessmen; one, Alyaksandr Zingman, has extensive interests in African mining and agriculture sectors.
Zingman had been negotiating with Madagascar officials in 2025 for agriculture-related contracts. A letter sent in February 2025 by Zingman to Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhankou -- obtained by AEOW researchers — indicates that Zingman’s company Aftrade was slated to supply Madagascar with 360 Belarusian tractors and other equipment.
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Coup Plots, Poison, Hacking, Sabotage: What Is The GRU’s Unit 29155?Aftrade signed a contract worth 30.8 million euros ($35.2 millon) with the Madagascar government for "services to implement the transformation of Madagascar’s agricultural system."
The text of that contract, dated August 20, 2025, notes that the deal is financed in part by Russia.
Zingman was also reportedly involved in negotiations to broker a deal for the transfer of the Nigerien uranium yellowcake at the warehouse in Niamey, according to the online news site Africa Intelligence.
In response to queries from AEOW/INPACT, Daniel Delnero, a lawyer for Zingman, confirmed that Aftrade had signed a contract with the former government in Madagascar "to provide tractors," but said the new government that took over in October canceled it. Aftrade is an authorized sales representative for the Belarusian tractor manufacturer, the Minsk Tractor Works, he said.
Zingman traveled to Madagascar "several times" to try and revive the contract, Delnero said in a letter, and he denied that Zingman had "any role whatsoever in the export of yellowcake uranium, from Niger or anywhere."
Russia House
In December, Siteny Randrianasoloniaiko, the speaker of the Madagascar National Assembly, posted on Facebook about the arrival of the first Africa Corps personnel in Madagascar.
Randrianasoloniaiko, whose security detail includes Russian military personnel, is the president of the African Judo Union and a friend of Marius Vizer, a Romanian business man who is close to Vladimir Putin. He and Vizer’s son co-own a company in Madagascar.
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In Russian Action Film, Bullets, Blood, Blasts, Bad Guys -- And A Whitewash Of Mercenary Atrocities?Overseen by a government agency called Rossotrudnichestvo -- which some Western authorities believe is a front for intelligence and espionage and which has been sanctioned by the European Union -- Russia House initiatives typically offer cultural events such as film screenings and concerts, and in some cases, language classes.
Similar centers have popped up in other African nations, including the Central African Republic, and Russia recently announced plans to open eight more on the continent.
Madagascar officials also authorized opening a branch for African Initiative, an information outlet that ostensibly functions as a news agency but some observers believe is a Russian propaganda front.
This past spring, Madagascar’s National Radio launched a program called “Russ–Mada” with the help of African Initiative. The initiative also organized a 10-day trip to Russia for seven Malagasy influencers.
Russia authorities also appear to be intending to recruit Malagasy to join an assembly plant in Russia called Alabuga which is churning out drones for the Russian war on Ukraine.
The effort has recruited thousands of people -- mainly young women from Central Asia, Africa, and South Asia -- for the positions, which offer attractive salaries for people from lower income countries.
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Study Abroad And Build Drones: How Foreign Children Are Serving Russia's Military MachineLast February, Richard Rakotonirina, who is the head of the Friends of Russia association and the leader of a new political party, traveled to the site in the central Russian region of Tatarstan.
The following month, at a ceremony announcing the formation of the political party, the Russian flag was raised alongside the Madagascar flag. In an interview with African Initiative, Rakotonirina described what he said were Madagascar’s deep connections to Russia, and hailed the 10-nation economic grouping BRICS.
“We are also raising the Russian flag because we have a connection with Russia,” Rakotonirina said in the interview. “The current political and geopolitical situation shows that Russia and China are the locomotives of BRICS in terms of development.”
Michael Randrianirina (left), a Madagascar army colonel who took power after a coup last October, traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 19.
Port Of Call
Rakotonirina and Randrianirina were not the only high-ranking Madagascar officials making the trek to Russia.
In May, Prime Minister Mamitianna Rajaonarison traveled to Moscow for talks with Sergei Shoigu, head of Putin’s Security Council, for discussions on military cooperation, including military training programs, as well as economic cooperation, such as Russian petroleum-product supplies.
Also up for discussion: construction of new Russian oil-storage facilities in Madagascar, which until recently imported all of the fuel it consumed from Oman.
A month prior, a Russian delegation visited an abandoned naval base whose restoration and modernization Madagascar authorities agreed with France just two months prior. That project is undergoing a feasibility study, and France has not yet announced specific financing terms.