As attacks have been reported in Mali in recent weeks – fake graves intended to discredit French forces; a massacre of about 300 people, mostly civilians – all evidence pointed to the shadowy mercenaries of the Russian Wagner group.
Even before these feared professional soldiers joined the attack on Ukraine, Russia had deployed them on low-profile military operations in at least half a dozen African countries. Their aim: to advance President Vladimir Putin’s global ambitions and undermine democracy.
The Wagner Group poses as a private military contractor and the Kremlin denies any connection to it, or sometimes even its existence.
But Wagner’s commitment to Russian interests was evident in Ukraine, where his fighters, who can be seen sporting the group’s chilling white skull and crossbones emblem, are among Russian forces currently attacking eastern Ukraine.
A Russian infantry fighting vehicle drives in Bangui, Central African Republic, on October 15, 2020 [File: Camille Laffont/AFP]
In sub-Saharan Africa, Wagner has established a foothold for Russia in the Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan and Mali. Wagner’s role in these countries goes well beyond the cover story of just doing a security job, experts say.
“They essentially rule the Central African Republic” and are a growing force in Mali, Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander of US forces in Africa, said at a Senate hearing last month.
The United States identifies Wagner’s financier as Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch close to the Russian president and sometimes dubbed “Putin’s chef” for his flashy restaurants favored by the Russian leader.
He has been accused by the US government of attempting to influence the 2016 US presidential election, and the Wagner Group is subject to US and European Union sanctions.
“Hybrid War”
Russia’s game plan for Africa, where it has stretched its influence as far north as Libya and as far south as Mozambique, is somewhat straightforward, analysts say. It seeks alliances with governments shunned by the West or faced with armed insurgencies and internal challenges to their rule.
The African leaders receive recognition from the Kremlin and military strength from Wagner. They pay for it by giving Russia prime access to oil, gas, gold, diamonds and precious minerals.
Russia is also gaining positions on a strategically important continent.
But there is another goal of Russia’s “hybrid war” in Africa, said Joseph Siegle, research director at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Siegle said Russia was also waging an ideological struggle, using Wagner as a “coercive tool” to undermine Western notions of democracy and turn countries to Moscow. Putin wants to challenge the international democratic order “because Russia cannot keep up very well in this order,” said Siegle.
“If democracy is held up as the ultimate desirable model of government, then that is a constraint for Russia,” Siegle said.
Rather, Wagner promotes Russian interests with soldiers and weapons, but also through propaganda and disinformation, as Prigozhin previously did for Putin.
In CAR, Wagner fighters drive through the capital city of Bangui in unmarked military vehicles, guarding the country’s gold and diamond mines.
They have helped repel 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 also a “key figure” in Wagner’s command structure, according to EU documents accusing the mercenary group of gross human rights abuses.
Ukraine war
A statue erected in Bangui last year shows Russian soldiers standing side by side to protect a woman and her children.
Russia is cast as the country’s savior and pro-Russian marches have been held to support the war in Ukraine and criticize former security partner France – although several protesters said they were being paid.
“A Central African proverb says that if someone helps you, you have to reciprocate. That is why we mobilized together to support Russia,” said Didacien Kossimatchi, an official of Touadera’s political party. “Russia has acquitted us of the unacceptable dominance of the West.”
Kossimatchi said Russia was acting in Ukraine “in self-defense.”
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 – almost half – were African. Several other African nations did not register a vote.
“Africa is becoming increasingly important to Putin’s efforts to dilute the influence of the United States and its international alliances,” according to a March report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a non-profit organization founded by the former British prime minister.
Russia’s strategy in Africa carries minimal economic and political costs. Analysts estimate that Wagner only operates with a few hundred to 2,000 mercenaries in a country.
Many are former Russian military intelligence agencies, Siegle said, but because it’s a private force, the Kremlin can deny responsibility for Wagner’s actions.
The real price is paid by ordinary people.
“More Violence”
People in Central African Republic are no safer, said Pauline Bax, deputy director of the Africa program at think tank International Crisis Group. “In fact, there is more violence and intimidation,” she said.
France, the US and human rights groups have accused Wagner mercenaries of extrajudicial killings of civilians in Central African Republic. A UN panel of experts said private military groups and “particularly the Wagner Group” had violently harassed people and committed rape and sexual violence. It’s just the latest allegations of serious abuse by the group.
CAR in 2021 acknowledged serious human rights abuses by Russians that forced Russian ambassador Vladimir Titorenko to leave his post.
The Wagner Group has responded with a charm offensive — making films to please the public, sponsoring beauty pageants, and distributing educational materials promoting Russia’s engagement in Africa. Russian is now taught at universities.
Russia has brought its CAR blueprint to Mali and elsewhere in Africa. There has been an “uprooting of democracy” in Mali, said Aanu Adeoye, analyst on Russia-Africa affairs at London-based think tank Chatham House.
After coups in 2020 and last year, France is withdrawing troops from its former colony that have helped fight armed groups since 2013.
Wagner moved in and struck a security deal with Mali’s new military government, which then expelled the French ambassador from the country and banned French television channels. Tensions with the West have escalated.
Likewise the violence. Last month, the Malian army and foreign soldiers who witnessed the alleged Russian killed an estimated 300 men in the rural town of Moura.
Some of those killed were suspected militants, but most were civilians, Human Rights Watch said, calling it a “premeditated slaughter of people in custody.”
When French forces surrendered control of the Gossi military base this week, suspected Wagner agents hastily buried several bodies nearby, and a Russian social media campaign blamed France for the graves. However, after its departure, the French military used aerial surveillance to show the formation of the sand tombs.
Both atrocities bear the hallmarks of Wagner mercenaries and Russia’s foreign policy brand under Putin, several analysts say.
“They have no qualms about side issues like democracy and human rights,” Chatham House’s Adeoye said.