SUMMARY
In 1968, Moussa Traoré became president of Mali when Modibo Keita was ousted in a military coup. Traoré initially headed a military council, but soon established a one-party rule under his authoritarian control. He was several times re-elected to the presidency standing as the only candidate. In late 1990, the first cohesive opposition parties emerged and large pro-democracy demonstrations developed into riots in late 1990 and early 1991. The political turmoil culminated in the ouster of President Traoré in a coup led by Col. Amadou Touré in March 1991. Touré promoted a transition towards democracy. After the establishment of a transitional civilian government led by former UN official Soumana Sacko, Malis first democratic presidential elections were held in 1992. Alpha Konaré was elected president and stepped down in 2002 after his second term, as stipulated by the constitution. The former coup leader Amadou Toumani Touré (commonly referred to as ATT) succeeded him and also prevailed in the 2007 elections.
After the relatively stable 1990s and 2000s, the following decade was more turbulent. In 2012, discontent with ATT’s rule grew, as the army suffered repeated and quick military defeats, when both the conflict over government and the conflict over Azawad resumed. There were widespread protests in the capital, Bamako, culminating in a coup on 22 March, with a group of junior officers under Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo. ATT was smuggled out of the country, and Sanogo subsequently seized power and proclaimed the formation of a national committee for the rebuilding of democracy and the restoration of the state (CNRDRE). However, Sanogo was not able to hold on to power for long, at least not officially. The coup had led to economic sanctions and a blockade by ECOWAS, and Sanogo soon agreed to cede power to Dioncounda Traoré, who was to serve as interim president until elections could be held. However, Sanogo’s junta made it clear that it was only stepping aside temporarily and it retained real influence. This was demonstrated by the fact that the junta arrested Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra in December 2012, forcing him to resign. Tensions between Sanogo and Diarra had increased due to the former’s support of an ECOWAS intervention force to northern Mali; the armed forces were against foreign military intervention and favored financial and logistical support. Django Sissoko was quickly appointed as new Prime Minister, and his new government included several ministers that were associated with Sanogo and his junta, which also served to illustrate that they remained influential behind the scenes.
The interim presidency of Diancounda Traoré came to an end with the July-August 2013 elections, which were won by Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (commonly referred to as IBK). IBK subsequently came to rule the country until August 2020, appointing no less than six prime minister during this time. Public discontent with IBK’s rule became increasingly vocal from June 2020 onward. Protestors called for his resignation, citing the government's management of the conflicts against JNIM and IS, alleged government corruption, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and a floundering economy. In August, sections of the armed forces carried out a coup, arresting both IBK and the current prime minister, Boubou Cissé. Around midnight on 18 August, the president resigned and dissolved the government and parliament. Subsequently, the “National Committee for the Salvation of the People”, headed by Captain Assimi Goita, announced that it had seized power. Goita had previously headed Malian Special Forces fighting in central Mali. On 12 September, the junta agreed to an 18-month political transition to civilian rule. A little over a week later, Bah Nawa was appointed interim president during the transitional period, with Goita serving as vice-president. On 24 May 2021, a new coup took place, ousting the civilian transitional government that had briefly ruled the country. Subsequently, Colonel Assimi Goïta took over as interim president of Mali. During his rule, the country moved in an increasingly autocratic direction, with Goïta indefinitely postponing elections in 2024, and dissolving all political parties in May 2025. Furthermore, in June the National Transisional Council (established after the 2020 coup to replace the National Assembly as a legislative body) approved a revised transition charter giving Goïta a renewable five-year mandate and allowing the transition to continue without elections until unspecified conditions are met.
As of 2025, Mali’s armed forces consisted of a 19 000-strong army, a 2000-strong Air force, and a 20 000-strong paramilitary and gendarmerie.
Since the outbreak of fighting in 2012, the country has received substantial military support from other states. For a long time, the main foreign player was France. Prior to the outbreak of fighting, the two states had a security partnership, defined by a technical cooperation agreement, signed in 1985, which provided for possible deployments of French soldiers on training missions or under operations supervised by Malian army command. When Ansar Dine, AQIM and MUJAO launched a southern offensive in January 2013, Bamako called on France to send troops. French President Francois Hollande agreed and Operation Serval was launched, with France deploying 1700 troops. A couple of months later, a bilateral security pact provided French forces the legal right to act of Malian territory. The operation ended on 15 July 2014, and was replaced by Operation Barkhane, launched on 1 August 2014 with the broader goal of fighting Islamists in the Sahel. In total, Operation Barkhane included 5100 French troops, deployed in five Sahel countries. Over the following seven years, Barkhane remained instrumental in fighting islamist groups in Mali. However, relations between France and Mali soured due to the democratic backsliding caused by the 2020- and 2021 coups, coupled with the junta’s strengthened ties to Russia, and in August 2022, the last French soldier left Mali.
Aside from France, AFISMA (the African-led International Support Mission to Mali), the ECOWAS-organized military mission that had been authorized with UN Security Council Resolution 2085 in late 2012, was also deployed in January 2013. Including troops from a number of ECOWAS countries, AFISMA was mandated to do a range of different things, notably to support Mali in recovering the areas in the north under the control of “terrorist, extremist and armed groups”. On 1 July of that year, MINUSMA (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) took over from AFISMA. MINUSMA had been established by Security Council resolution 2100 on April 25, 2013 and under the terms of this resolution, the mission would perform a range of activities, e.g. support the political process and carry out a number of security-related stabilization tasks, protect civilians, assist in preparations of free, inclusive and peaceful elections and help extend state authority. MINUSMA remained in the country until December 2023, when the mission withdrew after pressure from the military government.
In addition to these international missions, the Malian government also cooperated militarily with a number of neighboring states, which faced the same jihadi groups. This cooperation was carried out under the auspices of the so-called G5 Sahel joint force (FC-G5S), which was set up by the Sahel's five countries - Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania - in February 2017, as a means of settling the armed conflicts in the region. In 2022, Mali, together with fellow- Sahelian military-ruled countries Burkina Faso and Niger, left this military framework and instead formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). In 2024, this mutual defense alliance was in turn transformed into a formal confederation, the Confederation of Sahel States.
Finally, Mali’s relationship with Russia deepened following the country’s coups. In 2022-23, the regime contracted Wagner Group to assist in the rebellions it faced. In 2024, Wagner Group was replaced by Africa Corps,a paramilitary force directly controlled by Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Their exact number in Mali is not publicly confirmed, but most recent estimates put it at roughly 1 500.
End of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was established in 1922 after the 1917 Revolution and a subsequent intra-state conflict. It was governed by an authoritarian regime with the Russian Communist Party (CPSU) as the locus of power. Although the republics that constituted the Soviet Union had local governments, they primarily put into power the decisions made in the capital Moscow. Apart from a regular army, the government of the Soviet Union maintained a special police force, the OMON, which was used as riot police as well as in paramilitary operations. The OMON, called 'black berets' after their uniform, answered to the local authorities.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the CPSU and initiated the first modest attempts to democratize the political system. He remained in power until the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The First President of the Russian Federation, 1991-1999
The Russian Federation is a successor state of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union consisted of a number of republics, with the Republic of Russia being the largest. When the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, a new state, the Russian Federation, was established. It consisted of the former Republic of Russia and a number of the former autonomous republics of the Soviet Union. Among these were Chechnya, which would soon launch its its own bid for independence in the first Chechen War
The former president of the Republic of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, was elected president of the Russian Federation in the first direct and popular elections in June 1991. He rose to power based on his popularity as one of few high ranking Soviet officials (he was a member of the Politburo) to have publicly criticized the system, becoming a hero for the anti-communist opposition. He was also widely acclaimed for having led the popular resistance to the 1991 coup attempt by Soviet hardliners against Gorbachev. A severe economic crisis, corruption, as well as several political crises, including the 1993 October Coup, caused his popularity to plummet during his first term. His 1996 re-election was reportedly marred by widespread fraud. He was in power until 1999 when he resigned, handing power to his hand-picked successor, Vladimir Putin.
Putin regime, 1999-
Putin had seen a lightning political career, having first entered national politics in 1996. A year later he was appointed the director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Yeltsin assigned him prime minister in 1999, and named him acting president the same year. Putin easily won the 2000 election, capitalizing on his strongman persona gained from his handling of the 1999 apartment bombings, blamed on Chechen separatists, which led him to launch the Second Chechen War in August 1999. He similarly easily won the 2004 presidential elections, having been credited with stabilizing the Russian economy after the crisis it experienced following the collapse of the Soviet system and the wave of privatization that empowered the first Russian oligarchs. Putin's popularity was further boosted through his (selective) crackdown on some of Russia's oligarchs, notably the outspoken and Putin-critical Mikhail Khodorkovsky, often using extra-legal measures to seize and redistribute their property to political allies. Putin has widely been accused of cultivating a cult of personality, and has turned Russia increasingly authoritarian.
The Russian constitution hindered Putin from serving a third consecutive term as president. Putin instead held the position of prime minister under President Dmitry Medvedev 2008-2012, during which a constitutional reform was passed which extended future presidential terms from four to six years and would allow Putin to once again seek the presidency. Putin returned to the presidency following the elections in 2012, and was re-elected in 2018. A constitutional change in 2020 made it possible for him to run for two more six-year terms, and he was re-elected again in the 2024 elections. While Putin has long been perceived as being genuinely popular inside of Russia, the gradual clamp down on independent media, polling, freedom of expression and fair elections have made this proposition impossible to verify in later years. Genuine opposition inside of Russia has become increasingly difficult, with trumped up charges often resulting in long prison sentences for Putin's opponents. Several outspoken critics of Putin has also been assassinated, notably the journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 and opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison in 2024.
Russia under Putin has been involved in many armed conflicts, starting in 1999 with the Chechen Wars and subsequent conflicts over the Caucasus Emirate and Islamic State in the Caucasus. Russia was the driving force against Georgia in the 2008 South Ossetia conflict, acting as a secondary warring party to the breakaway republic. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and fomented and supported pro-Russian separatist movements there between 2014-2022, before launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As a result of the war in Ukraine, the Putin government was challenged by several groups in a conflict over government in 2023, with the most serious being the Wagner coup attempt. Russia has also been a secondary warring party in Mali and Central African Republic since 2024, and supported the authoritarian leaders Belarus and Kazakhstan to crackdown on protests in 2020 and 2022 respectively. Russia has under Putin been involved in widespread one-sided violence both during the Chechen Wars and during the war in Ukraine .
The Government of Russia has been involved in the interstate, intrastate and one-sided violence categories of UCDP organised violence.
