VIENNA — A new analysis by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies points to a sustained Russian air bridge into the Central Sahel, identifying at least 75 flights by military and military-linked aircraft between January 2025 and July 2026.
The report, released Wednesday by the Washington-based research group that tracks illicit networks, examined Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast data sourced from FlightRadar24. Analysts filtered for aircraft types historically associated with Russian private military contractors or the Ministry of Defense and for flights involving Mali, Burkina Faso or Niger.
Russian air bridge routes into the Sahel
According to the findings, Burkina Faso received the highest number of flights at 56, followed by 38 to Mali. Niger saw six flights during the period.
Researchers attributed Burkina Faso’s larger share in part to its role as a transit node between Mali and Niger and to the intensity of attacks by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara over the timeframe.
The busiest single operator was Flight Unit 224, an airline owned by Russia’s Ministry of Defense that was sanctioned by the United States in May 2023. The Russian Special Flight Squadron, which is tasked with transporting senior officials, conducted 14 flights, while Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Situations carried out 12.
Although that ministry’s core mandate is humanitarian response, previous media reporting has linked it to military cargo deliveries to Mali, Syria and Iran. C4ADS also highlighted several private carriers it said have not been sanctioned by the United States, European Union or United Kingdom despite documented connections to Russian military logistics.
Those include Kyrgyzstan-registered Sapsan Airlines. On routing, the analysis noted that state-owned aircraft, such as Flight Unit 224’s RA-82030, typically refueled at Russia’s Khmeimim air base in Syria and at sites in Libya including Al-Khadim before continuing to the Sahel.
Private carriers more often moved through commercial hubs in the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Türkiye. In April, an investigation reported that a fleet of Russian military-affiliated cargo aircraft made more than a hundred flights to Algeria over the preceding year.
Flight-tracking data, interviews and satellite imagery indicated the network was used both to deliver fighter aircraft to Algeria’s air force and as a logistics corridor for onward movements into the Sahel and West Africa. C4ADS stressed its findings are preliminary and meant to identify lines of inquiry rather than definitive conclusions.
The group cited limitations such as patchy ADS-B coverage and the possibility that operators manipulate transponder data to obscure destinations. It said the apparent rise in flights passing through Togo and Algeria before or after Sahel stops warrants additional scrutiny.
The pattern of Russian military logistics described in the report echoes broader concerns about Moscow’s expanding footprint in Africa and beyond, similar to trends seen around North Korea’s deepening military ties with Russia. Officials in countries along these air corridors, including international aviation regulators, are expected to face increasing pressure to clarify how they monitor and manage such traffic.