How Putin’s Shadow Soldiers Wagner Group Is Expanding in Africa

Best known for its mercenaries, the Wagner Group also mines diamonds, spreads disinformation and props up autocrats in an effort to grow Russia’s footprint.

Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group standing guard in 2019 during a parade in Bangui, Central African Republic.Credit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

Mercenaries are enjoying a resurgence in Africa, hired to fight in some of the continent’s most intractable conflicts. Perhaps the most famous outfit is the Wagner Group, a nebulous network that combines military force with commercial and strategic interests, now at the vanguard of Russia’s expanding ambitions in Africa.

Wagner fighters have been active in the wars of Mali, Central African Republic, Mozambique and Libya. They ally with embattled leaders and militia commanders who can pay for their services in cash, or with lucrative mining concessions for precious minerals like gold, diamonds and uranium. Wagner troops have faced frequent accusations of torture, civilian killings and other abuses.

But Wagner is far more than a simple guns-for-gold scheme. Operating through a sprawling web of shell companies, it has become a byword for a broad spectrum of Kremlin-backed operations in over a dozen African countries. Wagner meddles in politics, props up autocrats and orchestrates digital propaganda campaigns. It donates food to the poor and produces action movies set in Africa. It has even organized a beauty pageant.

The Kremlin denies any link to Wagner. But American and European officials, as well as most experts, say it is an unofficial tool of Russian power —  a cheap and deniable way for President Vladimir V. Putin to expand his reach, bolster his war chest against Western sanctions, and expand his influence on a continent where sympathy for Russia remains relatively high.

Image

A photograph released by the French military showing Wagner operatives at the Mopti airport, in central Mali, in February. Credit...French Army, via Associated Press

“It’s a power play by Russia,” said Pauline Bax, deputy Africa director at the International Crisis Group. “Through Wagner, it wants to see to what extent it can spread its influence in Africa. I think the results have surprised a lot of people.”

Here’s a look at how Wagner has spread across Africa, and why its operations are increasingly important to Mr. Putin.

How Wagner Got Its Name, and Went to Africa

  Wagner emerged during Mr. Putin’s first assault on Ukraine in 2014, when its mercenaries fought alongside pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region. Its commander was Dmitry Utkin, a retired Russian Special Forces commander said to be fascinated by Nazi history and culture.

The group’s name, and Mr. Utkin’s military call sign, is taken from the composer Richard Wagner, Hitler’s favorite. Some of the group’s fighters share that ideology: Ancient Norse symbols favored by white extremists have been photographed on Wagner equipment in Africa and the Middle East.

Wagner expanded to Syria in 2015, tasked with bolstering President Bashar al-Assad and seizing oil and gas fields, American officials said. In 2016, Mr. Putin awarded Mr. Utkin with military honors at a banquet in the Kremlin. A year later, the United States imposed sanctions on Mr. Utkin for his activities with Wagner.

The group turned to Africa in 2017 under the apparent guidance of Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a Russian tycoon known as “Putin’s chef.”

Image

Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2016.Credit...Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Like Mr. Putin, Mr. Prigozhin hails from St. Petersburg, where he once ran a hot-dog stall before setting up a catering business that prospered on lucrative Kremlin contracts. The United States indicted him in 2018 on accusations that he financed a Russian troll factory accused of meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

In Africa, Wagner began to advise tottering dictators, run social media disinformation campaigns and deploy teams of fake election monitors, according to Western officials, experts and United Nations investigators. Companies linked to Mr. Prigozhin operated gold and diamond mines.

Mr. Prigozhin denies any link to Wagner, and has even questioned the group’s existence. “The Wagner legend is just a legend,” he said in a written response to questions.

He may be technically correct: No longer a single company, Wagner has become the brand name for an unofficial Russian network spanning the continent, experts say.

Since 2016 the US. has imposed at least seven sets of sanctions on Mr. Prigozhin, his companies and his associates, singling out his yacht and three private jets. The European Union also sanctioned Mr. Prigozhin in 2020 over Wagner’s role in Libya, and on June 1 this year a top E.U. court rejected his legal challenge to those measures.

Facebook and Twitter have removed hundreds of fake accounts run by his associates. Russian investigative news outlets have documented his close ties to Mr. Putin and the Russian defense ministry.

That profile makes Mr. Prigozhin quite different from other Russian oligarchs who made their fortunes through Russian state privatizations in the 1990s, experts say.

“He’s not an independent businessman per se,” said Samuel Ramani of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based nonprofit, and the author of a forthcoming book on Russia in Africa. Independent research, he said, shows that, “his business interests are very tightly tied to what Wagner does, and he gets a cut by being a middleman in deals between African leaders and the Kremlin.”

Where Wagner Works

One of Wagner’s earliest forays on the continent was a disaster.

In 2019 it deployed about 160 fighters to the gas-rich, Muslim-majority Cabo Delgado region, in northern Mozambique. But within weeks, rebels with a local Islamic State affiliate killed at least seven Wagner troops, American officials said. A few months later, the Russians pulled out.