After Aborted Rebellion in Russia, Concern Mounts over Wagner in Africa

• Paramilitary organisation won’t be withdrawn from Africa, says Lavrov

•We’ll continue to hold mercenary group accountable, State department spokesman 

•Expert warns mercenary group doesn’t bring stability, but chaos

Recent acts  of rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group in Ukraine against Russia, its mother country, has continued to generate concerns in Africa, especially in countries, where its leader had earlier turned to the group to help reinforce their stay in office.

Unfortunately, the aborted rebellion was believed to have brought unease to many parts of Africa, where some of the leaders, who had earlier turned to the Wagner group, now face the possibility that the private paramilitary organisation could be weakened or even dismantled, The Washington Post reported.

United States President, Joe Biden, yesterday, said the U.S. and its allies made clear to Moscow that they were not involved in the Wagner mercenary group’s brief uprising in Russia over the weekend, calling it “part of a struggle within the Russian system.”

This was as the State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, who declined to confirm that sanctions were being delayed, said the United States always timed its sanctions “for maximum impact or maximum effect” and therefore hinted that the US would continue to hold the group “accountable.”

Yet, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Cameron Hudson, has warned that the latest development “only reinforces the point that Washington has been making to African governments: ‘Wagner doesn’t bring stability — it only brings chaos.’”

Conversely, the Russian authorities have said they would not be withdrawing operations of the mercenary group from Africa.

Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, recently led an armed rebellion targeting Russia’s military leaders, accusing them of botching the war in Ukraine, and also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Wagner fighters appeared to seize control of the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, which oversees fighting in Ukraine, and were advancing toward Moscow until they were ordered back to their field camps when a truce brokered by Belarus was announced between Putin and Prigozhin.

But Biden has said he spoke with U.S. allies over the weekend to coordinate a response to the rebellion and asked his national security team to prepare for a “range of scenarios.”

“They agreed with me that we had to make sure we gave Putin no excuse — let me emphasize, we gave Putin no excuse — to blame this on the West, to blame this on NATO. We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it. This was part of a struggle within the Russian system,” he said.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the message was delivered to the Russians through various diplomatic channels.

“We also made clear to all our allies and partners that the United States was not involved and would not get involved in these events, and that we view them as internal Russian matters,” Kirby said at the White House press briefing, adding, “We delivered that same message to the Russians themselves through appropriate diplomatic channels.”

Biden, however, said the U.S. and its allies would continue to support Ukraine “no matter what happened in Russia.”

The president spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday to reaffirm U.S. support for the country and the events in Russia.

“What we’re going to stay focused on is making sure that Ukraine can continue to succeed on the battlefield and not speculate about what this might or might not do on the political spectrum inside Russia,” Kirby said, later adding that the U.S. was “not taking sides in this internal matter” between Putin and Prigozhin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview, yesterday, with RT, a Russian state media outlet, said, “Military from Russia” will continue to work with the Central African Republic and Mali, but he didn’t mention Wagner by name, noting only that those countries had “requested a private military company” when they were “abandoned by the French and other Europeans.”

“At their request, several hundred servicemen are working in the CAR as instructors – this work, of course, will continue … Both the CAR and Mali appealed to the Wagner PMCs with a request to ensure the safety of their leadership,” Lavrov said. “Regarding the reports about who is panicking and about what, I did not see any panic. I did not see any changes in the relations of the relevant African countries with the Russian Federation,” he said.

Lavrov said that he had received several phone calls, including from “African colleagues” and insisted preparations for the Russia-Africa summit, which is due to take place at the end of July in St Petersburg, were “in full swing.”

Global attention has largely focused on the turbulence within Russia, where the aura of President Vladimir Putin, was perceived to have been damaged by the short-lived insurrection of Wagner’s leader, Yevgeniy Prigozhin.

But a Kremlin crackdown on Wagner, is believed, could also have far-reaching consequences in Africa and the Middle East, where Wagner supplied lethal firepower to despots and strongmen while advancing Moscow’s international agenda.

For instance, in the Central African Republic and Mali, where Wagner has its biggest presence on the continent, residents said WhatsApp group chats and weekend conversations in the African nations were dominated by speculation about the fallout in their countries.

“Everyone is scared,” said a political analyst in Bamako, the capital of Mali, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about the tense situation. “Everyone knows that what happens in Russia will affect us.”

Officials and experts, according to The Washington Post, said it was too soon to know whether Wagner would retreat from Africa, or whether Prigozhin would be permitted to continue running the organisation’s sprawling operations beyond Russia. For now, the group’s mercenaries were still visible at checkpoints and other security installations in Africa, according to witnesses and media reports.

The Central African Republic’s communications minister, Serge Djorie, did not respond to requests for an interview but sent a statement blaming Western media for causing “unnecessary friction.”

“The Central African Republic needs peace, nothing but peace, with people and countries willing to give their sincere support for the development of its people,” he said.

The government of Mali did not respond to a request for comment.

Many Western officials and regional authorities were skeptical that an oblique truce struck between Prigozhin and the Kremlin can stand for any extended period, potentially threatening Russia’s interests in Africa as well as the stability of its allies.

“The threat analysis of Wagner in Africa will need to be revised,” said J. Peter Pham, a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council. “It may be a lowering of the threat assessment in the long term, though in the short term, things could worsen. But that change is coming is fairly clear.”

The stakes were underscored this year by assessments contained in leaked U.S. intelligence files, which raised the alarm about Wagner’s plans to establish a “confederation” of anti-Western states on the African continent, where the group has struck deals providing paramilitary capabilities in exchange for lucrative concessions giving it control over assets ranging from diamond mines to oil wells.

Researchers and the U.S. military had estimated that there were several thousand Russian mercenaries on the continent.

Western officials and analysts said internal divisions in Russia could provide an opportunity for the Biden administration and other Western powers to claw back influence in countries where Wagner was active and prevent the group from gaining new footholds.

Authorities in Mali had moved further into Russia’s orbit this month when they asked the U.N. peacekeeping force to withdraw, leaving Wagner as their main international military partner. But officials had not commented publicly since news broke of Prigozhin’s rebellion.

Leaders don’t want to be seen as choosing sides between Putin and Wagner, said a political analyst in Bamako, as they know they needed Russian support to fight spiraling Islamist violence.

One of the many unanswered questions surrounding the terms of the truce, which involved an uncertain exile for Prigozhin in Belarus, was whether Putin allowed the Wagner leader to retain control of his overseas operations.

“Is that the price?” asked Bob Seely, a member of the British Parliament, who served on the foreign affairs committee, which has been conducting an investigation of Wagner in Africa for the past two years. “Is his continued control over them part of the price of giving up his Wagner formations inside Russia and Ukraine?”

Even if Prigozhin was promised that he could run Wagner’s outposts, officials were skepticalthat the Kremlin would ultimately stick to that bargain, in part because of Africa’s economic and geopolitical importance to Moscow.

One of the benefits of Wagner to Moscow was that it allowed Russia to operate in Africa “both officially and unofficially,” analysts said, with the group — which has been accused of human rights violations — often promoting Kremlin interests but also operating with a level of plausible deniability.

Pham, of the Atlantic Council, said it was not yet clear whether Wagner would ultimately be forced to operate more closely with the Russian state or if it instead might “fracture into half a dozen mini-Wagners” that operate more autonomously, adding that, what seemed evident was that, at least, in coming months, Prigozhin “is not going to be focused on his African ventures.”

However, for Washington, which has been escalating efforts to counter Wagner in Africa in the past year, this moment appeared an opportunity and might cause a reevaluation of policies, according to current and former officials and analysts.

At the moment, the President Joe Biden administration has paused sanctions it had planned to unveil in coming days related to Wagner’s gold business in the Central African Republic, according to a current government official and a former one.

U.S. officials wanted to avoid the appearance of siding with either Wagner or the Kremlin, the officials said.

Miller, State Department spokesman, declined to confirm that sanctions were delayed, but said the United States always times its sanctions “for maximum impact or maximum effect” and pledged that the United States would continue to hold the group “accountable.”

On his part, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Cameron Hudson, said it would be important to get a “clearer understanding” of the relationship going forward between Wagner and the Kremlin, to ensure that Washington’s policies targeting Wagner — whose head in Mali has already been the subject of U.S. sanctions — do not end up inadvertently helping Putin.

Hudson explained that, there were scenarios that could have deeply negative consequences for African countries and their relations with the West — including if thousands of Wagner’s soldiers move out of Ukraine and onto the continent — the overall situation “only reinforces the point that Washington has been making to African governments: ‘Wagner doesn’t bring stability — it only brings chaos.’”

Efforts by the Biden administration to inoculate struggling African countries from the overtures of Prigozhin and his top aides included an interagency trip this past fall of White House, Defence Department and State Department officials to Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The administration was considering providing governments in that region with security assistance, which it hoped could lure governments out of Wagner’s obit or prevent them from joining in the first place.

But the endeavor seemed to have been complicated by recent coups in some Sahelian countries, including Burkina Faso, which a senior State Department official said Wagner was already providing some equipment to.

Authorities in Burkina Faso were seeking security assistance to fend off a powerful Islamist militant insurgency, but U.S. officials were restricted in what they could provide as a result of the coup and had concerns about any assistance being used to commit human rights abuses by Burkina Faso authorities.

Also, in the Central African Republic, the U.S. official characterised President Faustin-Archange Touadéra as having “buyer’s remorse” about his decision to work with Wagner,because of the extent of the group’s control over the country’s resources.

There, conversations were ongoing about what type of support the United States might be able to provide, the official said.

But Hudson and other analysts warned that any such discussions need to take into account the services that Wagner was offering, including direct military support and protection of the incumbent regimes.

The discussion, in some ways, “is sort of apples and oranges,” Hudson said, adding:“Wagner is providing security, and we’re offering textbooks.”

In interviews in Bamako, some Malians said they worried about the fallout. Ben Sangare, a 43-year-old consultant, put it bluntly: “It will be difficult,” he said, “for Russia to deal with its own problems and the Sahel region at the same time.”

Mahamadou Sidibé, 45, said although it seemed unlikely that Mali would take back its request for the U.N. withdrawal, the chaos has eroded trust in Wagner and Russia.

“It exposed Russia’s leadership,” he said, “and it allowed me to see some of Russia’s flaws.”