The legacy of the Wagner Company in Africa

Two years after Prigožin's death, Russian mercenaries remain in the field as employees of the Ministry of Defence. They are strongly committed to supporting political propaganda throughout Africa, even offering special courses for African journalists with programmes on Russian television networks and agencies.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Two years have passed since the ill-fated campaign of Evgenij Prigožin and his fellow mercenaries of the Wagner Company towards Moscow, which led to the disappearance of the founder in a mysterious plane crash and the dissolution of the group that represented the fiercest fighting in Ukraine, but also Russia's big business in Africa.

Now the ‘musician’ fighters remaining in the field are employees of the Russian Ministry of Defence and special teams of the Rosgvardia, or have gone to Belarus as instructors for local army units.

Wagner's activities have also been very important in various parts of the world, first in Syria and then especially in Africa, starting with Mali, where civil war broke out in 2012 with Tuareg separatists demanding independence, supported by the Libyan dictator who was later overthrown and killed, Muhammad Gaddafi.

French soldiers supporting the government forces were also involved at the time, but they had to leave the country in 2020, closing their military bases, and in the ensuing clashes, power was seized by Colonel Assimi Goita, president of the military junta that still effectively rules the country, supported by Russian mercenaries who then began their presence on the African continent.

It was Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov himself who justified Wagner's intervention, stating that “the Malian authorities felt they did not have sufficient forces without external support, and since they no longer had the support of those who promised to fight terrorism, they turned to a Russian private military company”.

Thousands of “musicians” poured into Mali to train local soldiers and protect senior officials, at a cost of million per month, opening at least 15 military bases and checkpoints, some of which were taken over from the French.

One of Wagner's commanders in Mali, Ivan Maslov, published the All Eyes on Wagner project in the press, ending up under US sanctions in 2023 as the organiser of meetings between Prigozhin and several other African heads of state, and accused of various heinous crimes in combat in both Ukraine and the Central African Republic.

Moreover, Russian mercenaries are accused of many tragic events that have led to the deaths of many innocent citizens, and by 2023 there were already 370 cases of mass extermination, summary executions, sexual violence, theft and much more.

The Wagnerites created a network of prisons where people were tortured and starved, as revealed by several journalistic investigations, including a report by the International Criminal Court published last June by the Associated Press, which even documented cases of cannibalism.

Even before Prigozhin's disappearance, the Russian authorities began to take control of Wagner's affairs throughout Africa, with the visit of Deputy Defence Minister Junus-Bek Evkurov on 22 August 2023, the day before Prigozhin's plane crash.

The visit extended from Libya to Mali and Burkina Faso, and then to other countries. At the end of 2023, the Afrikanskij Korpus was established, taking over all of Wagner's functions in Africa, while the company remained formally active only in the Central African Republic.

One of the Russians' main interests remains gold mining in Sudan, which began in 2017 and is regulated by an agreement with the then dictator Omar al-Bashir after a visit to Moscow, signed together with President Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, interference in the politics of many other African countries continues. One example of this is the cancellation of elections in the Central African Republic in support of dictator Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who will be re-elected with “Putin's” consent only in December this year.

Wagner's heirs are strongly committed to political propaganda throughout Africa, even offering special courses for African journalists with programmes from Russian television networks and agencies, with the task of “denouncing fake news”, in which the main lesson concerns the Russian extermination of Ukrainians in Buča, “staged” by Westerners to denigrate the Russians' desire to bring peace to the world, from Ukraine to the whole of Africa.