Wagner Mutiny is a Warning for African Countries Hosting Non-State Actors

ADF STAFF

Government officials in the Central African Republic (CAR) were shocked when Yevgeny Prigozhin turned his infamous Wagner Group mercenaries against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Desperate for information, cabinet members called CAR military officers and Russian military instructors. Some feared it was the beginning of a Russian civil war that could lead to their own downfall.

“Yes, there are Wagner mercenaries [in CAR], and everyone is worried that the face-off between Putin and Prigozhin would bring an end to their operations in our country,” an advisor to President Faustin-Archange Touadéra told The Daily Beast website.

“Everyone feared that if war broke out in Russia, the Russians [in CAR] would not only be forced to return home, but our political, military and business relationship with Russia would be halted.”

The recent news of the Wagner Group mutiny was met with anxiety in several African states that do business with and host members of the mercenary group. The rebellion raised red flags for countries that now must reconsider how they manage their security.

“Certainly the mutiny will give countries where Wagner operates pause for thought,” analyst Faisal Al Yafai wrote for The Arab Weekly newspaper. “No country needs a group of trained, armed, stateless men wandering around.”

Prigozhin, a Kremlin caterer known as “Putin’s chef,” formed the Wagner Group in 2014. Before the mutiny, it was often referred to simply as “the Company” in Russian circles, so great was its reach into all aspects of Russia’s clandestine objectives.

Russian mercenaries first arrived in the CAR in 2017 to prop up Touadéra and stave off a rebel offensive. Now, the group is deeply entrenched in the country’s political, economic and defense landscape. Some believe the survival of the CAR’s president depends on Wagner fighters.

Wagner has expanded operations into Libya, Mali and Sudan. It offers authoritarian regimes a suite of services that has included armed protection, military training, disinformation campaigns and election interference.

In return, the group is compensated with lucrative mining concessions and other opportunities to extract natural resources.

However, Wagner has shown in the CAR and Mali that with its services come allegations of atrocities and human rights abuses against civilians.

Although Wagner’s rebellion in Russia caused confusion about the group’s future, experts foresee its operations in Africa continuing.

“The Kremlin may cut off the head of Wagner, but the group’s tentacles in Africa will remain,” Al Yafai said.

Regardless of whether Prigozhin remains in charge or the group is absorbed by the Russian military, rebranded or replaced by a different Russian contractor, African officials in these already unstable nations have new concerns about the mercenaries in their midst.

Could the Russians become more disruptive, vicious, lawless or even turn on them?

Oluwole Ojewale, a researcher at the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, said the Wagner rebellion offers a warning to countries that have invited the Russians in.

“Private armies might sometimes prove effective in the battlefield,” he wrote in a June 28 article for online magazine The Conversation Africa. “And militias might be useful in intelligence gathering. But the inability of state authorities to bring them under control casts serious doubt on their overall usefulness.”

Ojewale listed three implications the Wagner mutiny could have for their African hosts: rebellion, increased human rights abuses and insubordination to state military authorities.

“[The mutiny] bodes ill for most African states in which Wagner operates,” he wrote. “In most, the country’s army is subordinate to the mercenary group. The rebellion by Wagner against the Kremlin shows the group can support discordant elements in weaker African states to subvert democracy.

“In addition, non-state armed groups could draw their cue from the Wagner group and become unaccountable to the military.”

Fed up with the Wagner Group’s pillage and plunder of Africa, some are calling for an end to their involvement on the continent.

“They have served to entrench dictatorships and pose major threats to democracy and the rule of law, especially as they operate in nations with fragile governments,” a July 6 editorial in Nigerian newspaper The Daily Trust said.

“African leaders who relied on the group to bolster their hold on power should face the reality that the group is weakened. As they have shown with the mutiny in Russia, Wagner could easily topple their host governments. They are now more virulently a risk to their countries’ futures.”