2023-12-05 21:56:22
Almost six months after the rebellion by the Russian paramilitary group Wagner and the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, which occurred two months later in the crash of a plane, the Russian Ministry of Defense is working on a new unit: an “African corps” that would replace Wagner, according to several media outlets and Telegram channels.
Published on: 05/12/2023 – 20:56
3 min
A Russian delegation led by the Russian Deputy Minister of Defense, Colonel-General Younous-bek Bamatguireevich Evkourov, visited Niamey, capital of Niger, on Monday (4). This is the first official trip by a member of the Russian government to this country since the July 26 coup, which disrupted diplomatic relations between Niger and its international partners.
The delegation was received on Monday by the head of the Nigerian military regime, General Abdourahamane Tiani. At the end of the meeting, the parties proceeded to “sign documents within the framework of strengthening military cooperation between the Republic of Niger and the Russian Federation”.
A All Eyes on Wagner, a research group that documents Russian influence in Africa, published, on Monday, a study on Burkina Faso, which reveals that the Russian presence in the country is growing.
Lou Osborn, member of the group and co-author of “Wagner, enquête au cœur du système Prigojine” (Wagner, investigation into the heart of the Prigozhin system), published by Faubourg-Documents, states that it is not known who currently runs the group.
“What we know is that today there is a strong involvement of the Russian Ministry of Defense which, after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, began to travel regularly to Africa, with, within the delegation, representatives from the Ministry of Defense, but also from Russian secret services,” he says.
“I think we need to start moving away from the Wagner name a little bit. [O grupo] continues to be a very interesting brand for Russia, but today we really see a recovery in the Ministry of Defense of the activities that the group was doing in terms of its presence there [Ucrânia]. For now, we have not seen any significant changes,” she adds.
In his opinion, this could indicate that the group will gradually integrate into the Russian Army.
Russia’s presence
For Osborn, the objective is not to transform the group into a “branch” of the Army aimed at external partnerships, but rather to use it as a way to strengthen Russia’s presence internationally.
“We provide a tool that we call Wagner or something else that is effective in spreading its influence and helping Russia project its power beyond countries within its geographic proximity,” she analyzes. “Promoting Russia and its interests obviously remains a priority for the Kremlin. It doesn’t matter the form.”
Little is known about the group’s leadership after Prigozhin’s death. “We know that there are a number of executives who survived, who were not on the plane, who began to leave for other organizations, which are affiliated with the Russian security services. So this is a little of what we see, but today we have little information about these leaders”, he continues.
Regarding the crash of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private jet, in the researcher’s opinion, there is also not much information.
“It’s really hard to imagine that they will do a full, independent investigation into what happened. So we’ll probably never know. Obviously, the most likely hypothesis is that it was a contract killing”, she concludes.
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