Russia Operating Wagner Paramilitary Group in Africa

One year after Yevgeny Prigozhin led a rebellion against Russian President Vladimir Putin, the late paramilitary chief’s Wagner Group has been dissolved by Moscow, its assets divided up among branches of the Kremlin, most notably the mercenary group ingested by the Russian Ministry of Defense, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Moscow then shifted the Wagner paramilitary group under a bigger umbrella group in Africa, the Africa Corps, according to the report, to bolster its interests there.

Breaking Wagner into pieces is to ensure, in part, that no one person would ever have the same autonomy enjoyed by Prigozhin, who met an untimely death in an airplane crash two months after the mutinous march on Moscow, according to the Kyiv Post.

In addition, as it pertains to the erstwhile Prigozhin's group of mercenaries, Russia has now taken a more active role in Wagner's operations as opposed to its shadowy involvement before, according to the report.

By folding the rest of Wagner’s mercenaries into Africa Corps., Moscow has the same goal now as it did under Prigozhin’s operations in the continent: “Establish control in several African countries,” Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, a former special adviser to the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service, told the Times.

Russia is using Africa Corps. to increase its foothold and access to Africa’s natural resources — gold, diamonds, bauxite — while boxing out the United States and weakening Western interests there overall, according to the Times report.

"In Africa, these soldiers are doing much the same thing — guarding trade routes, securing resources that Moscow uses to circumvent sanctions, and more — serving local juntas and directing the flow of migrants," Ruslan Trad, a security analyst with the Atlantic Council, told the BBC.

One American general testified in March.

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