L’mutiny the mercenary the Wagner group arrived within a radius of 200 kilometers Fly demonstrated the strength of these on the field paramilitaries created and directed by Yevgeny Prigozhin. However, the actual weight of this venture company is even higher as it has been unofficially represented by the Wagner Group for years Moscow’s foreign policy in the Middle East and especially on the African continent.
According to some American studies, the Wagner group is present in Ben twelve African countries with a wide range of interests. It goes from Trade in valuable mineralsatTraining of armies premises until Control of the security apparatus and domestic politics. Wagnerites have long been i Central African Republic champions where they act as President Touadera’s praetorians, managing the gold mines of one of the poorest countries in the world.
In Sudan It was Prigozhin’s men who trained the Hemeti Rapid Support Forces that started an anti-government civil war from April 15, but they too were armed by the Russians. Equally strong hold mali where the Wagner group staged two coups in less than two years to put in power a young captain who drove out the French Bamako Surrender of his country to the representatives of Fly.
In West Africa, after Mali, the dominoes have fallen Guinea and the Burkina Fasoall parts of what was once named France and thanks to the presence of these mercenaries at a “Russiafrique“. After the failed coup in Guinea Bissauthe Wagner Group has had this in its sights for a long time Ivory Coast, the most valuable jewel of the remains of French rule in West Africa. But Prigozhin’s private enterprise began its African penetration from the coast Libyawhere connections to the general Khalifa Haftartrue leader of Cyrenaicaare strong and rooted.
It was the Russians who blocked his advance on the capital Tripoli to avoid a head-on collision with the Türkiye, the godfather of the crumbling government based in Tripolitania. If in Libya, Mali, Central Africa, Sudan and Burkina Faso it is military might that allows the Wagner groups to dominate the country, Eritrea And Zimbabwe It is economic interests that give Prigozhin society a key role.
An outlet on Red Sea and control of the mines are the calling card of the Wagner Group, which has also established mining companies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in other countries Madagascarwithout forgetting the presence in South Africa, the most important country on the continent. An articulated mapping made over the years that has managed to exploit that weakness of the West and the fragility of many governments that have had to shake the Wagner Group solution jihadist as happened in Mali or Burkina Faso. While it appears that some senior Wagner officers have already left the Ukrainian front for Africa, it remains to be seen how the Kremlin has managed this unofficial branch of its power over the years it has become a fully autonomous power worth billions in revenue.
Matteo Giusti, professional journalist, Africanist and writer, collaborates with Limes, Domino, Panorama, Il Manifesto, Il Corriere del Ticino and Rai. He has acquired a great knowledge of the African continent, which he has visited and analyzed many times, also thanks to the contacts with the local population. In 2021 he published the book “L’Omicidio Attanasio, morte di una ambassador” and in 2022 “Your Africa, the new powers against old Europe”, both published by Castelvecchi
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Matteo Giusti