"This is the Russian state coming out of the shadows in its Africa policy," says Jack Watling, land warfare specialist at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) and one of the report's authors.
According to Dr Watling, "there was a meeting in the Kremlin fairly shortly after Prigozhin's mutiny, in which it was decided that Wagner's Africa operations would fall directly under the control of Russian military intelligence, the GRU".
"The narrative that Russia is pushing [in Africa] is that Western states remain fundamentally colonial in their attitude," says Dr Watling. "It's very ironic because the Russian approach, which is to isolate these regimes, capture their elites and to extract their natural resources, is quite colonial."
The fundamental change lies in "the overtness with which Russia is pursuing its policy", Dr Waitling added. Prigozhin's Wagner Group had always provided Russia with a level of plausible deniability in operations and influence abroad.
Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many in the Western security apparatus say that Russia's mask has slipped.