How Russia's Wagner Group cashes in on conflict and chaos in Africa

There's money to be made in chaos and the Russian private military contractor known as the Wagner Group knows how to capi‐ talize on it.

PMC Wagner (Private Mili‐ tary Company), as it is formal‐ ly known, is part mercenary force and part multinational enterprise.

It has commanded a great deal of international attention for its role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine and for its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin's ties to the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin.

But it has been building its business — and its influence — in Africa for several years, where it has traded its securi‐ ty forces, military training and propaganda services for ac‐ cess to valuable economic re‐ sources, according to the Council on Foreign Rela‐ tions think tank.

The European Union and the United States recently im‐ posed sanctions on Wagner specifically related to its activ‐ ities across Africa. The Canadi‐ an government has not fol‐ lowed suit, though it has sanctioned various people and entities associated with Wagner — including Prigozhin — related to Rus‐ sia's invasion of Ukraine.

Wagner may not be the only private military company contracted by governments in Africa — PMCs from China,

South Africa, and the U.S. are known to operate across the continent — but it operates differently and more secre‐ tively, said Sergey Sukhankin, a senior fellow with the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

"Russia is using criminals, mercenaries [and] war crimi‐ nals in sovereign countries in Africa, in Ukraine and other countries," he told CBC News from Edmonton.

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A stepping stone in Su‐ dan

Sukhankin said Wagner first emerged in Ukraine in 2014, when hostilities broke out in the eastern Donbas re‐ gion. It was later involved in operations in the Syrian civil war, supporting the regime of Bashar al-Assad in bat‐ tles against armed opposition groups and the so-called Is‐ lamic State.

It found its toehold in Africa in Sudan in 2017, where analysts said it began to build a business out of exploiting political instability.

In exchange for gold min‐ ing concessions, Wagner al‐ legedly offered former presi‐ dent Omar al-Bashir security, surveillance and logistics training for Sudanese forces "in order to put down domes‐ tic unrest" at a time when the long-time dictator was facing protests and losing the sup‐ port of some of his regional backers, explained Khalid Mustafa Medani, an associate professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at McGill University.

Wagner has maintained re‐ lationships with the Sudanese Armed Forces, which has con‐ trolled the country since a popular uprising top‐ pled Bashir in 2019, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Those two groups are now in a power struggle and have been fight‐ ing each other since April.

It's not clear what, if any, support Wagner may be pro‐ viding to either side; Prigozhin denied any involvement in Sudan's internal conflict last month.

Although Wagner has worked closely with the RSF in protecting its gold smuggling operations, Medani said it hasn't necessarily taken a side in the conflict.

"[Its] primary objective is to secure their financial and military interest and they're not 100 per cent sure who's going to win," he said. "They hedge their bets."

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Going for gold

Wagner has created other opportunities out of turmoil across Africa, notably in for‐ mer French colonies such as the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali and Burkina Faso, that have endured civil war, insurgencies or coup d'etats in recent years, the Council on Foreign relations reported.

Wagner mercenaries have been present in civil war-torn CAR since 2018 as military in‐ structors. They now protect the president and patrol the streets of capital Bangui, while also overseeing and profiting from the exploitation of the impoverished country's gold, diamond and logging re‐ sources.

In January testimony be‐ fore Congress, the U.S. Under Secretary for Political Af‐ fairs claimed Wagner con‐ trolled gold mines in Mali, where its mercenaries have reportedly been active since 2021. Mali, one of Africa's largest gold produc‐ ers, has been ruled by a mili‐ tary junta following succes‐ sive coups in 2020 and 2021.

Human rights organiza‐ tions have accused Wagner forces of committing abuses, including torture and killings, in both CAR and Mali.A UN re‐ port linked Wagner and

Malian forces to a March 2022 massacre of more than 500 people, largely civilians, over five days in the village of Moura, in Central Mali. Dozens of women and girls were raped in the attack, the UN reported.

According to the Associat‐ ed Press, Burkina Faso au‐ thorities requested nearly $30 million US in gold from its mines to be handed over for "public necessity," raising the spectre of it being used to hire Wagner, following the ex‐ pulsion of the French military earlier this year, months after a coup replaced one military leader with another.

Burkina Faso's govern‐ ment denied this, but said it had asked Russia to send mili‐ tary trainers to the country.

Around the same time, propaganda video appeared online featuring fighters dressed in Wagner uniforms fighting alongside Malian and Burkinabe soldiers against skeletons in French military helmets, before implying that Ivory Coast would be a subse‐ quent front.

Sanctions, designation may be ineffective

aDespite the atten‐ tion, Sukhankin questions the capabilities of Wagner merce‐ naries to combat local armed factions, pointing to a botched intervention against an Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique.

"Wagner Group, in many ways, acts like the Soviet mili‐ tary advisors during the Cold War," he said. The Soviet mili‐ tary, he continued, was not the most successful in "orga‐ nizing counter-guerrilla move‐ ments."

Sukhankin said there are limits on Wagner's reach on the continent; it has not found footing in nations with relative wealth, stability and reputable govern‐ ments. Rather, he said it makes inroads in countries that could be seen as "pariah states."

There is growing pressure on Western governments to impose harsher sanctions on Wagner and designate it as a terrorist organization. Cana‐ dian MPs who voted unani‐ mously in January to call on the federal government to do just that.

But Medani doesn't really think sanctions or terrorism designations will hinder Wag‐ ner, saying much of the com‐ pany's wealth and assets are smuggled through third coun‐ tries.

Sukhankin agreed. But he thinks a terrorist designation could carry some weight, at least when it comes to stable governments in Africa — or anywhere else — because they "will not engage in any activities with [a] terrorist or‐ ganization."

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