Wagner’s group is working to create a “confederation” of anti-Western states in Africa. This was revealed by Pentagon sources published by the Washington Post, according to which the group is fomenting instability in Africa by using its paramilitary forces and focusing on disinformation to support Moscow’s allies.

One of the classified documents lays out the strategies that the United States and its allies could use to strike the Wagner Group. Among them is providing information to Ukrainian forces to help them kill the group’s commanders, writes Il Messaggero

According to Pentagon documents, the rapid expansion of Russia’s influence in Africa is a growing concern of the US military and intelligence agencies, which prompted them last year to find ways to strike a network of bases and trading posts. Wagner with attacks, sanctions and cyber operations.

At a time when Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin worries about Kremlin infighting over the paramilitary group’s increasing involvement in the war in Ukraine, US officials are portraying the Wagner Group’s global expansion as a potential danger. The Pentagon document cites files containing information about Ukrainian forces’ intent to eliminate Wagner commanders, and mentions the readiness of other allies to take similar lethal action against Wagner traffickers in Africa.

However, there is little evidence in the file that the CIA, the Pentagon or other agencies actually troubled Wagner’s group during the six years that a mercenary group controlled by Putin associate Prigozhin seized strategic locations in at least eight African countries. . The most significant U.S. strike against the Wagner group came near Deir ez-Zor, Syria, in February 2018, when U.S. airstrikes destroyed several hundred Wagner fighter jets that attacked dozens of Delta Force, Ranger, and Kurdish forces near the gas stations.

Overall, the dossier portrays the Wagner Group as a relatively loose force in Africa, where it is expanding its presence and ambitions, even as the war in Ukraine has become a burdensome, if not overarching, problem for the Kremlin. As a result, “Prigogin is likely to further strengthen the network in several countries,” one intelligence document concluded, “undermining each country’s ability to sever ties with its services and exposing neighboring states to his destabilizing activities.”

The emergence of Wagner’s group heralds a new wave of competition between major powers in Africa and, at the same time, a resurgence of authoritarianism, said Anas El Gomati, director of the Sadeq Institute research center in Tripoli. Wagner, he said, “is the solution to the problems African dictators are in.”

The Wagner Group for a time controlled some gold mining properties, including in Darfur, Sudan, through a series of companies through which it sold the precious metal abroad, including to Russia. The security of these sites was still ensured by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo himself, who, as we know, amassed a large fortune, becoming one of the richest men in the country.

The Wagner group officially entered Sudan in 2017. Al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan, is going to Russia, seeking political, economic and military support, in exchange for which he promises important economic opportunities for the Kremlin. In 2017, Al-Bashir and Putin signed the Iron Pact in Sochi.

A few months after that trip, Meroe Gold, a newly formed mining company owned by the Russian company M Invest, set foot in what we know is the third largest gold producer in Africa and sent a large number of experts.

In 2020, the US publicly accused M Invest of being a front company for Wagner’s PMC, which would use it specifically for gold mining in Darfur. The US imposes sanctions against Meroe Gold, its subsidiary M Invest and against its leaders: Andriy Mandel and Mihaul Potekpin. According to the US Treasury Department, these companies helped Prigozhin trade more than 7.5 million dollars.

According to some analysts, there would be a moment when Wagner would make a qualitative leap, transforming himself from an actor who protects his own commercial interests to a protagonist alongside the powerful, a situation that should have happened during the popular 2019. rebellion against Al-Bashir. Samuel Ramani, author of Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Militant Pretender? says that immediately after the fall of Al-Bashir, the head of Wagner’s group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, allegedly tried to get accreditation from the new sovereign. Council, saying it was ready to support a new Sudan led by Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.

But now it’s 2019, and the national security services are brutally suppressing popular protests, imprisoning various members of local resistance committees and the forces of freedom and change. The Sovereign Council wants to take a step back and return to the phase of peaceful transition. Thus, the Wagner group is assigned only the role of guarantor of its commercial interests and guardian of the mining areas it manages.

The material was made with the support of the RADOR agency