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Sahel coup belt 2026: AES sovereignty, Russian displacement of France, and the gold and uranium recoupling
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have exited ECOWAS, signed a confederal pact, and replaced French and US security architecture with Russia's Africa Corps. The 2025 to 2026 mining renegotiation cycle, with Barrick, Orano, Resolute, and Endeavour all under pressure, is the operating story for sovereign creditors and miners.
The Alliance of Sahel States (AES), formalized as a confederation at the Niamey summit on July 6, 2024, withdrew from ECOWAS effective January 29, 2025, after a one year notice period. Mali (Goita, Aug 2020 and May 2021), Burkina Faso (Damiba in Jan 2022, Traore in Sep 2022), and Niger (Tchiani, Jul 26, 2023) now operate a mutual defense ...
The Sahel After ECOWAS: Food Security and Sovereignty Under the AES
The Alliance of Sahel States completed its ECOWAS withdrawal in January 2025. Under junta rule, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger now host roughly 17 million acutely food-insecure people, a Russian Africa Corps security footprint, and a contested resource book that still attracts Chinese, Emirati, and Russian capital despite Western disengagement.
On January 29, 2025, the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State formally acknowledged the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, twelve months after the three juntas announced their joint exit. The Alliance of Sahel States, AES, now operates as a confederation under Assimi Goita (Mali), Ibrahim Traore (Burkina Faso), and Abdourahamane T...