After the death of the PMC “Wagner” leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russia is creating a new power structure that will take over extensive operations in Africa.
This is reported in the article of the American newspaper “The Wall Street Journal".
The Wall Street Journal published a diagram:
- Two other private military companies — “Redut” and
Convoy” — replaced “Wagner” in Africa; - these companies are financed by Putinʼs friends — Gennady Timchenko and Arkady Rottenberg;
- Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov heads the structure responsible for Russian operations in Africa;
- GRU official Andrei Averyanov supervises the activities;
At the end of August and September, Yevkurov visited Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali and the Central African Republic. Averyanov and “Redut” commander Kostyantyn Mirzayants were also seen in the footage from these trips. "Convoy" is headed by Kostyantyn Pikalov, who previously managed the military operations of the "Wagnerians" in Africa.
Russian militants operate in many African countries — Sudan, Mali, Libya, Mozambique, supporting various parties in local conflicts. There was talk of increasing Russian influence in Africa after 2014, when the first sanctions were imposed against the Russian Federation. Africa turned out to be especially important for the Russian defense sector, which was then deprived of many contracts around the world. If until 2013 the share of Russian weapons in Africa ranged from 11 to 25%, after 2017 it increased to more than 40%. In 2020, half of all weapons imported by African countries were Russian.
Another important lever of influence is energy. Nearly 600 million Africans do not have constant access to electricity, and droughts and other climate-related disasters are only making things worse. Since 2019, some countries — Algeria, Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria, Rwanda — have bet on Russian nuclear energy. Russia even promises to build several nuclear power plants on the continent over time.
- On the evening of August 23, a business-class plane belonging to the owner of the PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed in the Tver region. On August 27, his death and the death of nine other people on board were officially confirmed. The Russian service of the BBC wrote that after the death of Prigozhin, the fighters of the PMC “Wagner” immediately had several options for work: the Russian Guard, the Ministry of Defense, the PMC “Redut” or the Chechen units of Akhmat.