Coup d’etat in Niger, Russia-Africa summit… The discreet return of Evgueni Prigojine

2023-08-02 09:10:00

“The purpose of the march was not to allow the destruction of the Wagner group”. It was with these words that Yevgueni Prigojine had justified, on June 26, the mutiny that he had launched two days earlier against the Russian authorities. Since then, the leader of the militia has almost disappeared from the radar and many questions remain unanswered about the future of his organization. Exiled to Belarus by mutual agreement with Vladimir Putin, Evgueni Prigojine did not stay there very long. A week after his arrival, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko himself announced that he had returned to Russia. “He is in Saint Petersburg. Where is he this morning? Maybe gone to Moscow, or elsewhere, but he is not on Belarusian territory,” he said at a press conference on 6 July. Vladimir Putin then confirmed having spoken with Prigojine in the Kremlin.

The leader of Wagner emerged weakened from his putsch attempt, which he suspended 200 kilometers from the Russian capital. If he managed to worry Vladimir Putin and his entourage, he suffers from his lack of allies in Russian high political circles, and his militia, the foundation of his power, was decimated by the long battle of Bakhmout, in Ukraine . Prigozhin himself had confided in May on his Telegram channel that 20,000 of his soldiers had been killed during the ten months of fighting. Reconstituting an army promises to be difficult. Prigojine has long recruited detainees leaving prison, but the Ministry of Defense assumed a monopoly on this recruitment last spring.

Three new apparitions linked to the African continent

But for the past two weeks, the oligarch has been gradually making his comeback, turning to a horizon he already knows well: Africa. On July 20, a video posted on Wagner’s Telegram account shows a man whose voice and figure resemble those of Prigojine. He is addressing his fighters settled in Belarus. “We fought with honour. You have done a lot for Russia”, he congratulates. Dismissing a return to the Ukrainian front, Prigojine advises his men to gather strength for a “new trip to Africa”.

The group is already deeply rooted in several countries on the continent, such as Libya, Sudan and Mali, and is also believed to be present in Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe and Guinea. In the Central African Republic, he controls entire sectors of the economy, notably gold, diamonds and timber, in exchange for the protection of the president. It is also with someone close to the latter that Prigojine was photographed on July 27, on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa summit, in Saint Petersburg. A snapshot posted on Facebook by his right-hand man, Dmitri Sytyi, who is believed to be in charge of Wagner’s operations in the Central African Republic, shows him shaking hands with a man identified by the Financial Times as Freddy Mapouka, chief of presidential protocol. Proof of Prigojine’s presence on Russian soil and of his freedom of movement, his participation, even remotely, in this meeting bringing together 49 African states reflects certain ambitions for this continent, while Russia is gaining influence there.

Even more recently, in Niger, where Moscow’s influence continues to grow, the putschists led by General Abdourahamane Tiani reportedly received a word of support from Prigojine. An audio message attributed to him was broadcast on July 28 by an organization close to Wagner. “What happened in Niger is nothing but the struggle of the Nigerien people against the colonizers who try to impose their rules of life on them,” Prigojine said in the alleged statement, referring to France. , accused of neocolonialism. “The people are suffering. And that’s where the love for Wagner private society comes from, and Wagner’s efficiency, because a thousand Wagner fighters are able to establish order and destroy terrorists,” he continued. By promising to succeed where Western powers have failed and by insinuating that his militia is establishing itself in Niger, Prigojine continues to play his own part and does not stop sowing trouble over his relationship with the Kremlin.