As abuses were reported in recent weeks in Mali – fake graves designed to discredit French forces; a massacre of about 300 people, mostly civilians – all evidence points to shady mercenaries of Russia’s Wagner Corporation.
Even before these fearsome professional soldiers joined the assault on Ukraine, Russia deployed them to low-level military campaigns across at least half a dozen African countries. Their aim: to advance President Vladimir Putin’s global ambitions and to undermine democracy.
The Wagner Corporation views itself as a private military contractor, and the Kremlin denies any connection to it or even, at times, that it exists.
But Wagner’s commitment to Russia’s interests has become apparent in Ukraine, where its fighters, seen wearing the group’s cool white skull emblem, are among the current Russian forces attacking eastern Ukraine.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Wagner has gained significant foothold for Russia in the Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan and Mali. Experts say that Wagner’s role in those countries goes beyond merely providing a security service.
General Stephen Townsend, the commander of US armed forces in Africa, told a Senate hearing last month: “They run essentially the Central African Republic” and are a growing force. developed in Mali.
The United States identifies Wagner as Yevgeny Prigozhin, a financier close to the Russian President and sometimes called “Putin’s chef” because of the flashy restaurants favored by the Russian leader. .
He is accused by the US government of trying to influence the 2016 US presidential election, and the Wagner Group is the subject of US and European Union sanctions.
‘Hybrid War’
Russia’s game plan for Africa, where it has applied its influence so far to the north is Libya and as far south as Mozambique is, in some ways, very simple, analysts say. It seeks alliances with governments shunned by the West or facing armed uprisings and internal challenges to their rule.
African leaders receive recognition from the Kremlin and military authority from Wagner. They pay for that by giving Russia top access to their valuable oil, gas, gold, diamonds and minerals.
Russia also gains a place on a strategically important continent.
There is another goal of Russia’s “hybrid war” in Africa, said Joseph Siegle, research director at the Center for Strategic Studies in Africa.
Siegle said Russia is also waging an ideological war, using Wagner as a “tool of coercion” to undermine Western democratic ideas and steer countries toward Moscow. Putin wants to challenge the international democratic order “because Russia cannot compete well in that order,” Siegle said.
“If democracy is seen as the ultimate aspirational model of governance, that is limiting for Russia,” Siegle said.
Rather, Wagner promotes Russia’s interests with soldiers and guns, but also through propaganda and disinformation, as Prigozhin did for Putin before.
In CAR, Wagner warriors travel around the capital Bangui in unmarked military vehicles and guard the country’s gold and diamond mines.
They have helped armed rebel groups and kept President Faustin-Archange Touadera in power, but their reach goes much further.
Russian national Valery Zakharov is Touadera’s national security adviser but is also a “key player” in Wagner’s command structure, according to EU documents accusing the mercenary group of serious human rights abuses.
Ukraine War
A statue erected last year in Bangui depicts Russian soldiers standing together to protect a woman and her children.
Russia is seen as the savior of the country and pro-Russia rallies have been organized in support war in Ukraine and criticized the former French security partner – although some protesters said they were paid.
“A Central African proverb says that when someone helps you, you must reciprocate. This is why we have mobilized as one to support Russia,” said Didacien Kossimatchi, an official in Touadera’s political party. “Russia has forgiven us for the unacceptable domination of the West.”
Kossimatchi said that Russia was “acting in self-defence” in Ukraine.
Such support from African countries is a strategic success for Russia.
When the United Nations voted on a resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine, 17 of the 35 countries that abstained – nearly half – were African. Several other African countries have not registered to vote.
“Africa is rapidly becoming important to Putin’s efforts to dilute the influence of the United States and its international alliances,” said a March report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a non-profit organization founded by the former British prime minister said.
Russia’s strategy in Africa comes with minimal economic and political costs. Analysts estimate Wagner operates with only a few hundred to 2,000 mercenaries in a single country.
Many of them are former Russian military intelligence, Siegle said, but because these are private forces, the Kremlin can deny responsibility for Wagner’s actions.
The real price is paid by ordinary people.
‘More violence’
Pauline Bax, deputy director of the Africa Program at the International Crisis Organisation, said CAR’s people were more insecure. “In fact, there is more violence and intimidation,” she said.
France, the US and human rights groups have accused Wagner’s mercenary extrajudicial killing of civilians in the car. A UN panel of experts said private military groups and “especially the Wagner Group” had brutally harassed people and committed rape and sexual violence. They are just the latest allegations of serious abuse by the group.
CAR in 2021 admits serious human rights abuses by Russians, prompting Russian ambassador Vladimir Titorenko to leave his post.
The Wagner Corporation responded with a glamor attack – creating films designed to please the public, sponsoring beauty contests, and distributing educational materials to promote engagement. Russia in Africa. Russian is currently being taught in universities.
Russia has taken its CAR blueprints to Mali and elsewhere in Africa. Aanu Adeoye, an analyst on Russian-African affairs at London-based consultancy Chatham House, said that in Mali, there has been an “uprooting of democracy”.
After coups in 2020 and last year, France is withdrawing troops from the former colony that has helped fight armed groups since 2013.
Wagner moved in, struck a security deal with Mali’s new military government, then expelled the French ambassador and banned French television stations. Tensions with the West are escalating.
So already violence. Last month, the Malian army and foreign soldiers with suspected Russian witnesses killed around 300 men in the rural town of Moura.
Some of the dead were suspected fighters but most were civilians, according to Human Rights Watch, calling it “an intentional massacre of detainees”.
This week, as French forces handed over control of the Gossi military base, suspected Wagner agents rushed to bury several bodies nearby and a Russian social media campaign blamed France about these graves. However, the French military used aerial surveillance after their withdrawal to show the creation of the sand tombs.
According to some analysts, both atrocities bear the hallmarks of Wagner mercenaries and the brand of Russian foreign policy under Putin.
“They don’t worry about little things like democracy and human rights,” says Adeoye of Chatham House.
