Since Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Kremlin, no one is unaware of the name of the paramilitary group he founded:
Wagner. Known for its military engagement and its abuses in Ukraine and Africa, it has been gradually replaced by the Africa Corps since the suspicious death of its two leaders.
To understand what the Africa Corps is, a point about the Russian presence in Africa and the nature of Wagner is necessary.
“With the exception of the Soviet era, the contemporary Russian presence in Africa began between the end of the 2010s and the beginning of the 2020s.
The key moment of the presence that we observe today is at the end of 2017-beginning of 2018 with the deployment of the Wagner group in the Central African Republic, which illustrates an unofficial presence of Russia in Africa.
The official Russian presence, manifested by the Russia-Africa summit in Sochi in October 2019, also takes the form of older economic partnerships and military cooperation, such as with Algeria, Egypt or South Africa. explains Maxime Audinet, researcher at the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School (IRSEM) and specialist in Russia.
“As for Wagner, they present themselves as a private military company but have never been one. It is a hybrid actor, a paramilitary group which acts in a gray zone and to which the Russian state has delegated part of its sovereign functions (use of force, violence) in regions where it did not wish to officially engage. ”, specifies the researcher.
And added: “In Mali for example, a deployment of this group took place from December 2021. It is this extension of the Russian presence which, combined with multiple other endogenous factors, will call into question the presence of France and accelerate the withdrawal of its armed forces with the end of Operation Barkhane. The “Prigojine galaxy” will thus establish itself sustainably and develop a three-dimensional presence: mercenarism, extraction of raw materials and influence.”
But when Yevgeny Prigojine and Dmitri Outkin, the two founders and leaders of Wagner, died in a plane accident considered suspicious by many observers, everything changed.
“Since then, we have seen a general restructuring of the Russian presence in these territories. Even if there remain 2000 or 2500 Wagner mercenaries who support the regime of Assimi Goïta in Mali, the official actors, Ministry of Defense and intelligence services in the lead, are gradually trying to dismantle, fragment and capture the legacy put in place. place by Evgueni Prigojine in the region”, describes Maxime Audinet, author of the book A Media of State Influence. Investigation into the Russian channel RT (INA Éditions, €19).
This is how the Africa Corps was born, by taking over what had been put in place by Wagner by state bodies. “Although it is still described as paramilitary by Russian officials, we know that the “African Corps” is entirely supervised by the army and the GRU, Russian military intelligence. Unlike his predecessor, who was certainly logistically supported by the force structures, but who had a form of autonomy guaranteed by his founders, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitri Outkin.
This desire to reframe could also mean that Russia no longer wants actors as uncontrollable as Wagner, even if it means moving forward openly. After all, its invasion of Ukraine openly marked it as an enemy of European and American powers.
“It seems that Wagner’s “March of Justice” towards Moscow tempered the Kremlin’s desire to rely on this type of actor and this flexibility, which allowed it for a time to engage in plausible deniability.
The government wants to rely on more loyal actors, not quite state-owned but under closer supervision. So, even if this new ecosystem tries to recruit Wagner staff or former members of the Lakhta troll factory project in Prigojine, particularly in Burkina Faso, certain profiles have been excluded.
Like Vitaly Perfilev, the head of Wagner’s military branch in the Central African Republic, who was deemed incompatible with this new structure,” analyzes Maxime Audinet.
Source: https://www.geo.fr/geopolitique/quest-ce-que-lafrica-corps-le-successeur-de-wagner-en-afrique-219600