Russia Tightens Grip on Wagner Units in Africa, Year After Failed Mutiny

[Pelican Press 0]

Russia Tightens Grip on Wagner Units in *******, Year After ******* Mutiny

For years, Russia covertly propped up authoritarian leaders, exploited natural resources and fought extremists in a number of ******** countries.

Russia worked through the Wagner group, a shadowy web of political advisers, entrepreneurs and mercenaries. But it never revealed how closely it was controlling Wagner’s activities around the world, maintaining a distance as numerous accusations of human rights abuses were leveled against the group’s operatives on the ground.

Wagner was led by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a ruthless tycoon who was once a close ally of President Vladimir V. ****** of Russia. But after Mr. Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny against Mr. ****** in June last year, Mr. Prigozhin was ******* in a plane ******.

Since then, Russia has been carving up Wagner’s assets and redistributing them to branches of the Kremlin, according to interviews with a dozen diplomats and military and intelligence officials from Western countries, Russia and Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Defense has taken control of Wagner’s mercenary arm in ******* and placed it under a ******* umbrella group, ******* Corps. Russia’s defense and foreign ministries did not respond to a request for comment.

Here is what’s to know about ******* Corps.

Where is ******* Corps deployed?

A few hundred instructors from ******* Corps first arrived in Burkina Faso, in West *******, late last year, according to Western officials and the group’s channel on the Telegram messaging app, which diplomats, analysts and Russian news outlets have considered a credible source on the group.

Since April, about 100 instructors from the organization have been deployed in ****** to train its military, a task that until recently had been led by the ******* States and ********* countries. A week later, the ******* States announced that it would withdraw about one thousand military personnel from ******.

Because ******* Corps is directly affiliated with Russia’s government, it “looks more legitimate to ******** governments,” said Sergey Eledinov, a security analyst and former representative of a Russian private military company working in *******.

Russia has also provided weapons to the two countries, where military juntas are struggling to contain jihadist insurgents in the Sahel, a semiarid region that extends through both nations.

Mercenaries from ******* Corps have also been deployed in Libya, which Russia has long used as a logistical hub for military deployments in sub-Saharan *******. Wagner’s mercenary activities there have been subsumed into ******* Corps, according to a ********* military official and a State Department official.

Is ******* Corps replacing Wagner?

About half of ******* Corps’ recruits are Wagner veterans, it said on its Telegram channel. And the jobs are similar: ******* Corps needs bodyguards, ground troops, drone operators and “electronic warfare specialists,” according to advertisements from the group.

But ******* Corps acts as an umbrella for Russia’s paramilitary activities on the continent — not just those of Wagner, but also of other private military companies. The mercenaries deployed in Burkina Faso are from a new structure called

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, for instance.

“There’s some sort of competition among these companies,” said Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, a former special adviser to the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service.

Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the G.R.U., oversees ******* Corps’ operations, according to the State Department.

“The goal is the same: Establish control in several ******** countries,” added Mr. Danylyuk, who co-wrote a recent

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on Russia’s military activities beyond Ukraine.

The name ******* Corps is reminiscent of Afrika Korps, the expeditionary force deployed by the Nazis in ******* during World War II. The Wagner group also bore a ***** reference: It was named after the ******* composer Richard Wagner, one of *******’s favorites.

Wagner hasn’t disappeared altogether: Some of its operatives remain in the Central ******** Republic and Mali. Their close ties with local military, political and economic circles have made them hard to dislodge or too useful for Russia to get rid of, Western diplomats and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

say.

A new *********** outlet, ******** Initiative, has also been created to promote the growing ties between Russia and ******** countries. It is

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

by Russia’s intelligence services, according to the U.S. State Department.

What does Russia want in *******?

In short, Russia wants geopolitical clout and access to natural resources. But ******** leaders have a lot of suitors: not just Russia, China, the ******* States and ********* countries, but also Turkey and the ******* ***** Emirates, among others.

Mercenaries and disinformation specialists from Wagner have played a key role in weakening Western interests on the continent and replacing ********* and U.S. troops, as well as ******* Nations peacekeepers, in several countries.

Those developments have alarmed U.S. officials.

“The Russian Federation is really trying to take over Central *******, as well as the Sahel,” Gen. Michael E. Langley, head of the U.S. military’s ******* Command,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Congress in March.

Russia has argued that it is championing a new multipolar world order that will help ******** countries bolster their sovereignty. But Russia is also seeking to grow its number of allies: Many ******** countries abstained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or even supported it, during votes at the ******* Nations.

Russia has signed military cooperation agreements with 43 ******** countries since 2015, according to the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Russia was also the largest supplier of weapons to ******* between 2018 and 2022, accounting for

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Wagner operatives have exploited gold mines in the Central ******** Republic and Sudan. Russian mining companies export diamonds from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and Zimbabwe, and bauxite from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, among others.

Russia has also increasingly been promoting a more classic state-to-state relationship.

The arrival of ******* Corps instructors in Burkina Faso late last year, for instance, followed a meeting between Mr. ****** and the country’s leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, last summer. Russia has also reopened an embassy there.

Russia has also promised to help Burkina Faso and Mali develop their nuclear sectors and to take in more ******** students at a time when Europe is trying to keep migrants away.

“Our friend Lavrov is back!” a newspaper in Burkina Faso

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

as Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei V. Lavrov, visited — one of at least a dozen ******** countries he has traveled to since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Mr. Lavrov

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Burkina Faso more military supplies and instructors.

“Western influence in a number of ******** countries has been reduced,” ******* Corps

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on its official Telegram channel last year. “A ‘window of opportunity’ has opened for the realization of our geopolitical interests.”

What do West Africans say?

The West ******** leaders who have sought closer partnerships with Russia want personal protection, soldiers and weapons to ****** rebels and Islamist insurgents affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Some civil society activists, civilians and local politicians in ******, Mali and Burkina Faso interviewed over the past year say that Russia is delivering.

“This partnership with Russia is going to help us end this war on *******,” said Boureima Ouédraogo, a pro-Russian civil society activist from Burkina Faso. “Our soldiers have no ***** anymore.”

But just as ******** militaries have been unable to defeat the insurgents despite the ********* and ********* support, they have also had limited successes with their Russian partners, security experts say.

And abuses against civilians have soared in the years since these militaries have called in Russian instructors, with Wagner mercenaries accused of mass killings and ******** in Mali and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and other ******* in the Central ******** Republic.

Soumaila Lah, a Mali-based security analyst, said that those living in large cities favored Russia’s presence as necessary. “But in the remote areas where mercenaries operate, local populations are noticing the cases of ********, the arbitrary arrests and the assassinations,” Mr. Lah added.

“In those places, they don’t want them anymore.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Russia #Tightens #Grip #Wagner #Units #******* #Year #******* #Mutiny

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/