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Two Russian private security companies are fighting over the contract to guard the Bissa gold mine in Burkina Faso, a key asset of Nordgold, the gold miner controlled by the family of Russian billionaire Alexey Mordashov.
RSB-Group, a Moscow-based security contractor led by Oleg Krinitsyn, has lost its place at the mine to a rival Russian firm. It has now written to Burkinabè officials asking them to step in. In those letters, RSB-Group raises allegations about security operations around the site, including attacks on Fulani villages near the mine. The claims have not been independently verified.
The rival company has not been named, and the value of the contract has not been disclosed. RSB-Group was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2022.
A mine under pressure
Bissa sits about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Ouagadougou, the capital, in a region where armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have attacked mining sites, workers and supply convoys for years. Mining companies across the country have turned to private contractors, government troops and civilian defense volunteers to keep operations running.
Nordgold knows the cost of that insecurity. It shut its Taparko mine in April 2022 and declared force majeure after attacks threatened staff and cut supply routes.
Burkina Faso’s Security Minister Mahamadou Sana recently toured Bissa to review protection arrangements and meet the personnel guarding the site. Stephen Osei-Bempah of Bissa Gold credited the state for keeping the mine open.
“If we are able to continue our activities here today, it is largely thanks to the support and assistance of the state,” he said.
Mordashov’s gold in Burkina Faso
Bissa is run by Bissa Gold SA, a Nordgold subsidiary. Nordgold, which began as the gold arm of Mordashov’s steel group Severstal, took over the project from Canada’s High River Gold and started production in January 2013 after investing about $250 million. Nordgold holds 90% of the mine, and the government of Burkina Faso holds 10%.
The Bissa-Zandkom operation produced 4.52 tonnes of gold in 2024, worth $355.49 million, according to Burkina Faso’s latest Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative report. Bissa Gold paid more than CFA 55 billion (about $95 million) to the state in taxes, royalties and other levies that year.
Nordgold’s footprint in the country is growing. In April 2025, the military government granted it an industrial mining licence for the Niou gold project near Bissa, which is expected to yield about 20.22 tonnes of gold over eight years.
A possible $1 billion sale
The security fight comes as Nordgold’s Burkinabè assets draw interest from buyers. Okto Group, a Russian gold miner chaired by Alexey Tolokonnikov, has been weighing a purchase of the Bissa and Bouly mines in a deal valued at $1 billion or more. Nordgold, Okto and Mordashov’s holding company Severgroup declined to comment on the talks in January, and no sale has been completed.
Okto entered gold mining in 2024 by buying alluvial assets from Polyus, Russia’s largest gold producer, and has expanded quickly since.
Burkina Faso’s leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, has moved the country closer to Moscow since seizing power in 2022, while tightening state control over the gold sector, the country’s biggest export.
Sanctions and ownership
Mordashov, 61, was sanctioned by the European Union and the United States after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Nordgold was sanctioned by Washington in June 2022. His wife, Marina Mordashova, is now listed as Nordgold’s controlling shareholder after ownership changes that followed the sanctions.
Born in the steel town of Cherepovets, Mordashov built his fortune by buying up workers’ shares in the local steel mill in the 1990s. He remains chairman and main shareholder of Severstal, Russia’s largest steel and mining group. Forbes estimates his net worth at about $37 billion, making him Russia’s richest person.
Figures were converted at CFA 580 to the dollar.
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