For years, the paramilitary group Wagner has been considered Moscow’s armed wing abroad, notably in Syria and several African countries. A status that may have to be rethought after the mutiny led in Russia by its leader.
After a spectacular coup that brought him less than 400 kilometers from Moscow before giving up, Yevgeny Prigojine must in principle go into exile in Belarus, an ally of Moscow, and redraw new relations with President Vladimir Putin. .
What about its operations in the outer theaters, where the private militia excels in local wealth exploitation, government protection, information warfare and brutal military operations?
“The greatest effects of this event could be felt in the Middle East and Africa,” said Rob Lee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute on Twitter, stressing that a “short-term compromise” is different from a “solution”. long-term”.
Obviously, Prigozhin and Putin had to raise the subject before concluding an agreement. Because abroad, Wagner depends heavily on the Russian Ministry of Defense, which delivers troops, equipment and weapons to its theaters of activity. And Moscow needs Wagner to keep a grip on these troubled areas, where it applies itself to denigrating Western influence.
In addition, the group provides significant income by bringing “gold and minerals from Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mali, which Putin needs to keep his economy on life support”, argues a European military source.
In Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Wagner’s mercenaries – Russians, from the former USSR and Syrians – acted as “special forces” on the ground alongside the Kremlin army from 2015. They are present today, in smaller numbers, near oil wells as well as in the provinces of Hama and Latakia (center-west).
In Africa, they have been identified in particular in Libya, Sudan and Mozambique. And are on the front line in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR), where a Wagner executive manages the security of President Faustin-Archange Touadera.
On Monday, Moscow tried to dispel doubts by assuring that Wagner would continue to operate in these two countries. The members of Wagner evolve there “as instructors. This work will of course continue”, as will their mission, to “ensure the safety of their leaders”, declared Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the RT channel.
The minister further assured that the episode of the weekend would not change anything in Russia’s relations with its African allies.
Bangui simultaneously confirmed. The CAR “signed (in 2018, editor’s note) a defense agreement with the Russian Federation and not with Wagner,” Fidèle Gouandjika, minister special adviser to the president, told AFP. “Russia has subcontracted with Wagner, if Russia no longer agrees with Wagner, then they will send us a new contingent.”
The United Nations independent expert on the situation of human rights in the Central African Republic accused the army and its Russian allies of abuses in February. The European Union then announced new sanctions against Wagner, targeting several of his senior officials in the country.
And on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Russia of being “a power to destabilize Africa, through private militias who come to predate and extort civilian populations”.
The rest will depend on negotiations between Putin and Prigojine, via Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
“The wait-and-see attitude in Bangui prevailed until Sergei Lavrov’s clarifications. But it is hard to see how a change of hierarchy within the Russian apparatus, and of Wagner’s positioning within it, could happen without extremely strong tensions on the field”, notes Maxime Audinet, of the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School (IRSEM) in Paris.
Bamako, for its part, did not react publicly.
“I can’t imagine Prigojine as part of his men letting go and abandoning the role that is theirs,” he added to AFP.
“The delegation of whole sections of sovereign power to Wagner, to act where the Russian state did not wish to get involved, gave this actor much greater room for maneuver than expected”, he underlines.
“The Prigozhin network has become the dominant player in the Russian presence in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. The fragile balance between Russian state and non-state actors on the continent is expected to experience significant upheavals.”
It will therefore take time for the fog to dissipate completely.
“Wagner had a certain freedom in his projects in Africa. Without cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, I do not see how the group could continue to work there”, notes Pauline Bax, deputy director of the Africa program at the International Crisis Group .
But Putin “cannot send Russian soldiers in place of Wagner. I cannot imagine his immediate withdrawal from the continent”.
26/06/2023 18:16:44 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
