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A prime adviser to the president of the Central African Republic stated on Friday that Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner paramilitary group, had visited the nation days earlier than the airplane he was believed to be touring on crashed in Russia.
“He got here right here to impress his troops after which went elsewhere in Africa,” stated Fidèle Gouandjika, the adviser to President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who in recent times has welcomed Wagner mercenaries to battle insurgent teams in trade for mining concessions.
Mr. Prigozhin’s presumed demise may have profound penalties for African consumer states and warlords who, within the span of some years, helped flip a mercenary enterprise into one in every of Russia’s strongest and recognizable belongings on the continent.
In nations such because the Central African Republic and Mali, Wagner operatives have offered safety to autocratic leaders searching for to remain in energy, in addition to troopers to assist underequipped nationwide armies battle rebels and extremist teams. In others, together with Libya and Sudan, they’ve provided warlords with weapons and coaching to mount challenges to fragile governments.
In return, Wagner’s African purchasers provided it with money, together with gold and diamond mining concessions. And Wagner’s hundreds of operatives and dozens of shell firms have been additionally concerned in different industries, together with timber, beer and vodka, logistics and leisure.
The way forward for this enterprise empire now seems unsure, with its most recognizable determine believed to be lifeless.
“He was a proficient individual, a proficient businessman. He labored not solely right here in our nation, and bought outcomes, but in addition overseas, specifically in Africa,” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia stated on Thursday about Mr. Prigozhin. “There he was engaged with oil, fuel, valuable metals and stones. Simply yesterday, so far as I perceive, he returned from Africa and met right here with a couple of officers.”
The final identified photographs of Mr. Prigozhin, in a video he launched earlier this week, seem to have been shot someplace in Africa. Many analysts advised it was in Mali, the place round 1,500 Wagner mercenaries have been deployed.
In an indication of the aura the group has cultivated on the continent, Russian flags have appeared at protests in some West and Central African cities in recent times, together with the emblem of the Wagner group and posters of Mr. Prigozhin. Its prominence has grown whilst its mercenaries have been accused of widespread human rights abuses together with executions, rape and torture.
Since Mr. Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny two months in the past towards the Russian army management, the Kremlin has tried to guarantee African purchasers that it was in management.
John Lechner, an unbiased researcher writing a e-book on the Wagner group, stated little would possible change within the brief time period for the group’s actions in Africa. For Wagner’s contractors, it may be enterprise as regular so long as they maintain being paid, he stated. However he added that with Mr. Prigozhin’s presumed demise, the group “may go on in a a lot much less charismatic means.”
Over time, different non-public army firms extra intently affiliated with the Russian authorities may search to recruit Wagner mercenaries, Mr. Lechner and others argued.
“The Wagner group is a device in Putin’s device package that he gained’t wish to surrender simply because Prigozhin and the management of the Wagner group are gone,” stated Cameron Hudson, a former C.I.A. analyst who’s now an Africa specialist on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Washington.
Nonetheless, Russia could battle to switch its most outstanding determine on the continent, Mr. Hudson stated, due to what he known as Mr. Prigozhin’s “star character, this mythic attraction in lots of components of Africa.”
Mr. Gouandjika, the Central African presidential adviser, known as Mr. Prigozhin a nationwide hero who had saved the nation. He posed carrying a Wagner T-shirt this week in a tribute to the group’s chief and stated in a phone interview on Friday that he was grieving — however that the partnership with Russia would proceed.
“There shall be one other Prigozhin,” he stated. “We’re awaiting the following one.”
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