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- The Kremlin gave the Wagner Group R18.3 billion for the year ending in May.
- The Wagner Group is active in, or negotiating with, at least 13 African countries.
- The Central African Republic, Mali, Libya and Sudan are strategic countries in the Wagner Group's resource exploitations.
Preying on fragile states, corrupt leaders and fighting insurgent wars for payment in the form of access to mineral resources, as well as pushing Russia's soft power in Africa, are all in the Wagner Group's playbook on the continent, according to analysts and reports on the paramilitary contractor.
While the Wagner Group has drawn global attention, particularly for its exploits in Ukraine and Africa, they are an upgrade from the likes of the Moran Security Group and the Slavonic Corps that arrived in Africa in the 1990s to provide protection to Russian businessmen.
The Wagner Group is the business.
Addressing soldiers at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin put to rest speculation about the Wagner Group when he revealed the state had funded the paramilitary outfit as much as R18.3 billion ($1 billion) between May last year and this year.
"The upkeep of the entire Wagner Group was fully provided for by the state. The Defence Ministry, the state budget fully financed this group," Putin said, according to The Moscow Times.
The annual turnover of the group and its numerous shelf companies across the world is unknown because of the shadowy manner in which it operates.
Putin's open declaration about funding the group despite years of denial came a week after the Yevgeny Prigozhin-owned army briefly turned against the government on Saturday.
According to the Washington Post, the Wagner Group is active, or in negotiations, in at least 13 African countries.
Its operations range from military, political, information, logistics and economics -mostly in the mineral extraction industry and securing contracts for the Russian government.
"Everywhere that Wagner goes, death and destruction follow in their wake. He [Prigozhin] has been a destabilising agent," said Matthew Miller, the US state department spokesperson addressing the media in Washington in response to further sanctions placed on the Wagner Group on Tuesday.
In southern Africa, the Wagner Group was active in Mozambique until 2019.
At the time, President Filipe Nyusi was struggling to contain a sudden Islamic State-linked insurgency in the oil gas-rich Cabo Delgado province.
With no regional support at the time, private military mercenaries, among them South African firm Dyck Advisory Group, battled insurgents.
The Wagner Group's most strategic partner in Africa is the regime in the Central African Republic (CAR).
Through Midas Resources, a CAR mining firm, the Wagner Group controls "concessions and licences for prospecting and extracting minerals, precious and semi-precious metals, and gems", according to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
They also have a huge stake in the Ndassima gold mine, which OFAC says has gold deposits worth more than R18.3 billion ($1 billion).
Key individuals in charge of Wagner's access to mineral resources in CAR are also involved in Madagascar, an investigation by the OFAC established.
'Mass killing, torture and rape'
Diamville, a gold and diamond trading firm in CAR, was in 2022 flagged for "converting CAR-origin gold into US dollars" after OFAC sanctioned numerous other Wagner-linked entities.
Diamville was also accused of smuggling diamonds mined in CAR into European and United Arab Emirates (UAE) markets.
While exploiting CAR for its mineral resources, and also as a conduit for illicit trade, it has maintained its hold on the state through acts of violence.
The Sentry, an American anti-corruption investigative unit, said the Wagner Group had arrived in CAR five years ago as Putin's ambassadors to re-establish relations after a 40-year absence.
They offered CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra "an alternative in the form of diplomatic support and military and political assistance".
To date, The Sentry argued, the Wagner Group had carried out human rights violations under the cover of protecting the regime.
"Under the cover of a counter-offensive against anti-Touadéra armed groups, Wagner, Touadéra, and his inner circle have perpetrated widespread, systematic, and well-planned campaigns of mass killing, torture, and rape throughout the country," it said.
Wagner, Touadéra, and his inner circle developed a parallel army that could be controlled and privatised for their own goals in order to "annihilate" their adversaries.
Wagner has increased the training and equipping of a dozen military units - most of which were formed after January 2021, with many of the newly incorporated soldiers being members of Touadéra's ethnic community - as well as militiamen who have been used as proxies in military operations over the last two years, The Sentry revealed.
The end of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali presents another opportunity for the Wagner Group to assert its influence further.
Early this year, Wagner executive Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov, working closely with Prigozhin's entity Africa Politology and the Malian authorities, dabbled in the arms trade, OFAC claimed.
The arms possibly found their way to the battlefields in Ukraine. Africa Politology's main role according to the US is a think tank used to sway perception about Russia in Africa.
Killed and maimed
Mali is one of Africa's coup capitals. Its current leader, Colonel Assimi Goïta, is holding back a civilian transition and his relationship with the Wagner Group is pulling the country back to insecurity in the face of Islamic Extremists, creating a chaotic environment for plunder and conflict to co-exist.
In Libya, the Wagner Group has been present in the country since 2019, initially providing support to Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA), reported al-Monitor in February.
In 2022, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigations exposed the Wagner Group for using banned landmines and booby traps around Tripoli.
HRW called for a credible and transparent international inquiry to ensure justice for the many civilians and deminers killed and maimed by the banned weapons.
According to Mohamed Eljarh, a Libyan researcher, the Wagner Group uses Tripoli as its base for operations in the Sahel region.
In war-torn Sudan, reports emerged that the Wagner Group was supplying the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo with missiles in the ongoing conflict.
Dagalo denied this in an interview with News24.
He however, confirmed that they, along with the national army, received training from the Wagner Group during the presidency of Omar al-Bashir.
With Haftar in Libya and Dagalo in Sudan, the Wagner Group is in control of critical resources, namely oil and gold.
In other parts of Africa - such as Zimbabwe, Algeria, Burkina Faso, South Sudan, Eritrea, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea - there are ongoing negotiations with the Wagner Group.
In Tanzania and Zambia, the Wagner Group left a sour taste after recruiting students arrested in Russia to fight in Ukraine, so as to get their sentence commuted.
Zambian national Lemekani Nathan Nyirenda died last year on the frontline in Ukraine, as did Tanzanian Nemes Tarimo in October 2022.
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation
