“While we were fighting in Africa…” Evgeny Prigozhin did not accidentally mention the African continent in one of his Telegram posts on Saturday, June 24, because it was from the city of Rostov-on-Don, in the south-west of Russia, that he organized his attempt rebellion against the military command, Le Monde reported, citing Rador.

Africa is closely connected with Wagner’s adventure. After the intervention in Syria in favor of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, it became the arena of expansion of the paramilitary group, which in 2017-2018 carried out coups in Sudan, the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali thanks to an opportunistic strategy with a recurring pattern: providing security in exchange for looting resources.

But the African continent has also been a source of tension between Wagner and his backers in Moscow, one factor in the rift that erupted on Saturday, along with the war in Ukraine.

“We were told that we need Africa, but then it was abandoned because all the money that was intended for aid was stolen,” Prigozhin added in his indictment. “Wagner asked for more money and materials to continue his activities in Africa,” confirmed a French diplomatic source familiar with the mercenary group’s activities. – That’s how it all started.

Although the evil began there, Wagner’s African device seems to have played no part in the riotous episode of June 23 and 24. According to multiple sources contacted by Le Monde, no significant movement by the militant group was reported on the African continent on Saturday.

What will happen to these strategic investments in Africa now that Wagner has abandoned his Moscow campaign? Is the presence of a security company on the continent condemned? “Wagner will continue to exist, with or without Prigozhin,” predicts a French diplomatic source.

Any recalibration must take into account the difficulties faced by the Wagner Group on site. According to our information, in Mali, relations between the mercenaries and the junta, which they came to support since 2021, are now strained. Several security and diplomatic sources refer to a “pay problem” for Russian fighters. “The junta does not have enough funds,” reports the entourage of Malian soldiers. Therefore, the private paramilitary group allegedly “installed” some of its people in key positions of power.

Tensions in Mali

Operations against jihadist groups also contribute to these tensions. “Wagner trusts the militia more [auxiliare] than in the army in Mali,” a Malian source in the security services claims. Meanwhile, a Western diplomat based in Bamako reports that the number of Wagner PMC troops has increased slightly since the beginning of the year from 1,500 to 1,600.

Mali was also used by Wagner to try to “buy military hardware from foreign suppliers and trade those weapons,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on May 22. According to Washington, these weapons and ammunition were intended for the “conflict in Ukraine”, “to help Russia through Mali”.

In the Central African Republic, which Wagner has turned into a platform that allows him to operate in Mali and Sudan, the challenge will be to maintain the structure of state penetration and economic plunder that has so far proved profitable. The RCA is also where Wagner waged his propaganda war against Western influence in Africa.

Wagner’s group is especially valuable to President Faustin-Archangel Touadera, who uses it for his personal protection, although he does not officially recognize its presence in the country. This support proved crucial to Tuadera’s re-election in 2020, when he came under attack from the rebel Coalition Patriots for Change (CPC).

In Sudan, the gateway to Africa in 2017, Wagner will also need to maintain a presence that combines security involvement with mining investment. The paramilitary group really established itself in the mining sector with the companies “M Finance” and “M Invest” and their Sudanese “daughter” Meroe Gold, headed by Mykhailo Potepkin, a close friend of Prigozhin.

According to an investigation by Le Monde in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Meroe Gold seized a waste treatment plant from its gold mines in Al Abidiya, Nile State. This highly profitable activity would allow Russia to obtain tons of gold from smuggling, thereby circumventing Western sanctions.

Robbery of an oil tanker

Despite official objections from Khartoum, Wagner maintains links with the regular army, but especially with the country’s most powerful paramilitary militia, the Rapid Support Force (RSF), led by the junta’s number two, General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, known as “Khemetti”. “. Since the beginning of the war in Sudan on April 15 between the SFR and the regular army of General Al-Burkhan, the latter condemned the support of the “Khemetti” troops by Prigozhin’s group.

As for the Wagner group’s last African stronghold, Libya, its future is in question as the West, and especially the Americans, increase pressure on their local partners to oust Russian mercenaries. After the “battle for Tripoli” (April 2019 – June 2020), Wagner entrenched himself in the areas controlled by his local ally, Marshal Khalifa Haftar, taking positions in oil fields and military bases in Cyrenaica (East) and Fezzan (South).

The country’s two-and-a-half-year-long lull has allowed the security company to focus on pilfering oil thanks to its deployment in the Gulf of Sirte and near southern wells to use Libya as a logistics hub for Syria. and Africa, especially by allowing the transit of people and equipment to Mali and the CAR, as well as helping fuel old Russian ambitions to limit Western military influence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.

Eventually, however, Wagner came to “autonomize,” according to a Western diplomat, causing tension with the Russian state apparatus. In Libya, as in other parts of Africa, the review of relations between Wagner and Moscow has only just begun, reports Le Monde, selected by Rador.