On August 26, the Wagner Group released a statement through a Telegram channel associated with the organization, asserting that its forces are no longer participating in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The statement emphasized that Wagner’s operations are now confined to Belarus and Africa, clarifying that the group has no personnel embedded within Russia’s National Guard, Ministry of Defense, or other military entities. “There are no divisions of the company in the Russian National Guard, in the ranks of the Russian Ministry of Defense, or anywhere else,” the statement read.
This announcement comes at a time of heightened tension along the Ukraine-Belarus border. Ukrainian officials have expressed concern over a significant build-up of forces on the Belarusian side, including special forces units and former Wagner mercenaries. Despite Wagner’s claims of non-involvement in Ukraine, the presence of these forces has fueled fears that Belarus could play a more active role in supporting Russia’s war effort.
Wagner in Africa
Wagner’s involvement in African conflicts has been extensive and varied. One of the group’s most notable deployments occurred in the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2018. Around 1,000 Wagner troops were sent to support the government of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra against rebel groups threatening the capital, Bangui. While Wagner’s brutal counteroffensive led to the restoration of government control over most major towns, Western analysts criticized the violence. However, many Central Africans viewed the restoration of territorial integrity as a success. In return for their assistance, Wagner subsidiaries were granted significant economic benefits, including unrestricted logging rights and control over the lucrative Ndassima gold mine. This established Wagner’s foothold in the country, allowing it to use military support to gain access to valuable natural resources.
In 2019, Wagner forces were deployed in Mozambique to combat an Islamic State-affiliated insurgency in the northern Cabo Delgado province. However, the mission proved unsuccessful, and Wagner withdrew after sustaining significant losses.
Wagner has also been active in Libya, where its forces have supported General Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) in its bid to seize control of Tripoli. Wagner’s involvement in Libya has been controversial, with reports of extrajudicial killings and the planting of landmines in civilian areas.
More recently, Wagner has been implicated in the conflict in Sudan, where the group is reportedly supplying missiles to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia during its ongoing war with the Sudanese army. This involvement has not gone unnoticed; Ukrainian operatives have reportedly engaged Wagner fighters in Sudan, as shown in videos released by the Kyiv Post in November 2023.
📹 EXCLUSIVE: Videos Show Ukrainian Special Forces ‘Cleaning Up’ Wagner Fighters in Sudan
One of the videos purportedly shows Ukrainian operatives stalking the streets of the African city and engaging Wagner fighters at close range with RPGs. pic.twitter.com/wD5noCk3Kt
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) November 6, 2023
After two military coups in 2020 and 2021 strained relations between Mali and its former colonial power, France, the Malian military junta turned to Russia and Wagner for support. Wagner’s arrival in late 2021 led to the departure of French forces, and the group quickly became involved in combat operations against Tuareg separatists and jihadist groups in northern Mali.
One of Wagner’s largest losses in Africa occurred on July 27, 2023, when a convoy was ambushed by Tuareg and al-Qaeda-linked forces near Tinzaouatene in northern Mali. The ambush reportedly killed 84 Wagner fighters and 47 Malian soldiers.
BREAKING:
An alliance of Tuareg rebels and JNIM (al-Qaida) has killed around 80 Russian Wagner mercenary soldiers in an attack in northern Mali, near the border with Algeria.
The Russians lost several MRAP armored vehicles & an Mi-24 helicopter.
The new head of Wagner killed pic.twitter.com/2F5kpwtOUF
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 28, 2024
Beyond its military operations, Wagner’s influence in Africa extends to information warfare. The group, through entities linked to its former leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, has conducted disinformation campaigns aimed at shaping public opinion and undermining Western influence on the continent. Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) and the Association for Free Research and International Cooperation (AFRIC) have sponsored phony election monitoring missions and spread anti-Western narratives. Wagner has also been accused of co-opting Pan-Africanist movements to promote anti-French and anti-Western sentiments.
Wagner’s Status After Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Death
The future of the Wagner Group became increasingly uncertain following the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a plane crash on August 23, 2023. Prigozhin’s death came just two months after he led a brief mutiny against the Russian military leadership. The mutiny, which saw Wagner forces seize control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and march toward Moscow, ended in a negotiated settlement but exposed significant fractures within the Russian military establishment.
In the wake of Prigozhin’s death, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported a dramatic reduction in Wagner’s operational capacity. According to their intelligence, Wagner’s personnel count has decreased from an estimated 50,000 at its peak in 2023 to around 5,000, now primarily deployed in Belarus and Africa. Following the mutiny, many of Wagner’s fighters were absorbed into Russian state-controlled military entities, including the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) and the Chechen special forces under Ramzan Kadyrov. Reports indicate that Wagner’s remaining forces have been fragmented, with some mercenaries opting to sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense or join other paramilitary units.
The Rise of Yevgeny Prigozhin
Born in 1961 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Prigozhin served a nine-year prison sentence in the 1980s for various crimes, including robbery, fraud, and involving minors in criminal activities. After his release in 1990, Prigozhin began selling hot dogs at a street market, using this humble start to enter the world of business.
Prigozhin soon expanded his ventures into the grocery store business and then into the restaurant industry. In the mid-1990s, he co-founded several upscale restaurants in St. Petersburg, including the well-known floating restaurant “New Island.” It was through this restaurant that Prigozhin began cultivating connections with Russia’s political elite, including Vladimir Putin. As Putin rose to power, Prigozhin’s businesses benefited from lucrative government contracts, earning him the nickname “Putin’s Chef” due to his catering company’s role in providing meals for Kremlin events and the Russian military.
By 2012, his company, Concord Catering, had secured a contract worth over a billion dollars to supply meals to the Russian military. These connections and financial resources laid the groundwork for Prigozhin’s next major venture: the Wagner Group.
Founded in 2014, Wagner served as a private military company supporting Russia’s interests abroad, particularly during the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The group quickly became a key tool for the Kremlin, allowing Russia to engage in military operations with plausible deniability. Wagner’s operations soon expanded to Syria, where it supported the Assad regime, and to several African nations, where it secured resources for Russia while propping up authoritarian regimes.
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