Chechen leader Ramzhan Kadyrov praised it for its “impressive results” in the war in Ukraine, saying he would like to set up his own private army at some point in the future, along the lines of the Wagner mercenary company.
Speaking at the international Security Conference in Munich, French President Macron called it “an explicit, direct, diplomatic-military, neo-mafia tool of Russia around the world”.
“A year ago I spoke with [Russian President] Putin and he assured me that Russia had nothing to do with the Wagner Group. Then I accepted it,” he told the audience.
Apparently he has now changed his mind, as has most in the West.
The US and EU have in recent weeks imposed new sanctions on the notorious paramilitary organization and affiliated companies of its owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
A few days ago, the US Department of Finance described Wagner as an international criminal organization and responsible for widespread violations of human rights.
A bipartisan group of US senators is now pushing legislation in the otherwise divided US Congress that would call on the US State Department to designate the Russian mercenary company a foreign terrorist organization.
The aim of all these moves is not only to make it harder for the mercenary group to operate on the battlefields in Ukraine.
The multifarious activity of the Wagner Group and Prigozhin is not even limited there…
From the war fronts to the polls
A trove of documents covering an eight-year period, from 2014 to 2021, containing untold amounts of evidence and appearing to be linked to a wide global network of entities under Prigozhin were recently leaked by anonymous hackers to the press, initially to the German newspaper Die Welt and continuity in a consortium of Western media.
Among them is the website Politico, which internationalized the investigation with US government cables.
The revelations are now coming in waves, known as the WagnerLeaks.
The bottom line is that it is now a common belief in the West that the rapidly expanding Wagner Group could become a serious global threat in the coming years. And not exclusively in the military field…
The documents reveal Prigozhin’s direct ties to the Russian state, including the Ministry of Defense or even coordination with Russia’s Federal Security Service, also known as the FSB, in countries such as Syria.
Although the Kremlin does not officially recognize these ties, it is estimated that it is with its “blessings” that the so-called “Putin’s chef” is expanding his action and business in more and more sectors and regions of the world.
They include local Wagner offices, “front” companies, film productions and – now by Prigozhin’s own statement – troll “farms” that now appear to reach as far as Mexico, engaged in anti-Western disinformation campaigns and even attempts to influence electoral processes .
They are not just about the 2016 US presidential election.
Wagner’s internal documents and memos leaked to the press show, for example, an attempt to intervene in the Estonian political scene in support of the far-right Eurosceptic party EKRE in the 2019 European elections.
And according to the journalistic investigation, similar disinformation practices have been applied within the Russian borders, in this case in favor of Putin, in the 2018 presidential elections.
The “long arm” of Moscow
“The Wagner Group shifts almost seamlessly between being an independent proxy of the Kremlin and an essentially commercial organization driven by the pursuit of profit,” the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons said in a related report last October.
“Not only does this often make it difficult to understand group motivations in any field of action,” he explains, “but it also highlights the challenges of dealing with regimes in which the boundaries between private and public are porous and fluid.”
Not coincidentally, a particular source of concern for the West – as can be seen from the new documents – is Wagner’s growing presence in the mineral lands of Africa, rich in natural resources and valuable (especially for the Western green transition).
From Libya and Sudan, to Madagascar and the Central African Republic, the paramilitary group is consolidating its multi-faceted presence in the continent’s politically troubled countries, in various sectors.
Filling the void left by Americans and Europeans, Wagner has signed contracts with regimes, governments and local actors to provide security against dissidents and/or jihadists, but also to protect mining sites for valuable raw materials.
Its action has been linked by UN experts to systematic human rights violations in the region.
At the same time, the Prigozhin network allegedly participates in local disinformation campaigns, pro-regime and anti-Western.
Against this background – and given the Chinese investment offensive in Africa – bells are now ringing in the West about Russia’s growing influence on a continent that, due to its colonial past, has historically relied to a large extent on the economic and military support of the USA and Europe.
Background processes
In order to curb the paramilitary group’s rapid expansion, Western officials are said to be consulting intensively behind closed doors, strategizing to stop the operations of Prigozhin’s network.
Diplomats from the US, Europe and Africa met behind closed doors in various locations: from Bangui in the Central African Republic and Kigali in Rwanda, to Brussels, Washington, London, Kiev and Lisbon.
According to US government cables obtained by Politico, a road map has already been drawn up to “eradicate” Wagner from the Central African Republic.
One of the most recent meetings in this context, it is reported, was in January between American officials and representatives of the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission there (MINUSCA).
But the means are few, Western support for her work is declining and, as an American official famously said, “Wagner is a cancer.”
“He doesn’t just stay in one country. It spreads to neighboring states and suddenly you have a much bigger problem to worry about.” Exactly which solution will qualify remains a closely guarded secret for now.
