Leaked Pentagon Files Say the Wagners Are Creating Instability in Africa Using Its Paramilitaries and Betting on Disinformation

The Wagner Group works to create a “confederation” of anti-Western states in Africa . This was revealed by the Pentagon leaks reported by the Washington Post, according to which the group is fomenting instability in Africa using its paramilitaries and focusing on disinformation to strengthen Moscow ‘s allies . In one of the secret papers the strategies that the United States and the allies could follow to strike the Wagner Group are drawn up. Among these is offering targeted intelligence to Ukrainian forces to help them kill the group’s commanders.

What is going on

The rapid expansion of Russian influence in Africa has been a source of growing alarm to US military and intelligence officials, prompting last year to find ways to target the Wagner network of bases and trading posts with attacks, sanctions and cyber operations, according to Pentagon documents.

At a time when Wagner’s leader, Yevgeniy Prigozhin , is preoccupied by internal Kremlin strife over the paramilitary group’s growing involvement in the war in Ukraine, US officials are painting Wagner’s global expansion as a potential danger. A Pentagon document mentions files containing information on Ukrainian forces’ goals to kill Wagner commanders: They cite the willingness of other allies to take similar lethal measures against Wagner traffickers in Africa.

Yet, there is little in the dossier to suggest that the CIA, Pentagon or other agencies actually troubled Wagner over the six years during which the mercenary group, controlled by Putin’s ally Prigozhin, “conquered” strategic points in at least eight African countries – among the 13 nations in which Prigozhin “sowed” – according to the documentation. The most significant U.S. strike against Wagner occurred near Deir al-Zour, Syria, in February 2018, when U.S. airstrikes killed several hundred Wagner fighters who were attacking a few dozen Delta Force, Ranger and Kurdish forces near a gas plant.

Overall, the dossier portrays Wagner as a relatively free force in Africa, one that is expanding its presence and ambitions there even as the war in Ukraine has become a burdensome, if not all-encompassing problem for the Kremlin. As a result, “Prigozhin will likely further strengthen his network across multiple countries,” concludes one of the intelligence documents, “undermining each country’s ability to sever ties with its services and exposing neighboring states to its destabilizing activities.”

Wagner’s rise heralds a new wave of great-power competition in Africa and with it a resurgence of authoritarianism, said Anas El Gomati , director of the Sadeq Institute think tank in Tripoli . The Wagners, he said, “are a solution to the kind of problems African dictators find themselves in.”

Wagner has for some time controlled some gold mining sites, especially in Darfur in Sudan, through a series of directly dependent companies through which they would resell the precious metal abroad, mostly to Russia. The security of these sites has been ensured up to now by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo himself, who we know has accumulated enormous wealth, becoming one of the richest men in the country.

The first time that Wagner officially sets foot in Sudan is in 2017. Al Bashir , former president of Sudan, travels to Russia, looking for political support and economic and military support; in exchange for the requests he promises important economic opportunities in the Kremlin. In Sochi in 2017, Al Bashir and Putin sign an iron pact.

A few months after that trip, Meroe Gold, a newly established mining company owned by the Russian company M Invest set foot in the country, which we recall is Africa’s third largest gold producer . It does so in the most usual way, by sending an ever-increasing number of experts.

In 2020, the US publicly accused M Invest of being a front company for Wagner PMC, which would use it precisely for gold mining in Darfur. The US issues sanctions against Meroe Gold, its subsidiary M Invest and against its bosses, Andrei Mandel and Mikhaul Potekpin. According to the US Treasury Department, the companies helped Prigozhin transact more than 7.5 million dollars .

According to some analysts, there would have been a moment in which Wagner would have made the leap in quality, placing himself from an actor in defense of his commercial interests to a protagonist alongside power and this would have happened during the popular uprisings of 2019 against Al Bashir, a alongside the latter to repress the protests taking place throughout the country.Samuel Ramani, author of the book “Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender?” immediately after the fall of Al Bashir, the head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, allegedly tried to gain accreditation with the new sovereign Council, saying he was ready to support the new Sudan to whose command Abdel Fattah Al Burhan had ascended .

But it is 2019 and the national security services are bloodily suppressing popular protests, imprisoning various members of the local resistance committees and the forces for freedom and change. The Sovereign Council wants us to take a step back and return to a phase of peaceful transition. Wagner is therefore brought back to being a mere guarantor of its commercial interests and guardian of the mining sites it manages.

Is this the moment when the rapprochement with the RSF (emergency forces, ed.) takes place? According to Samuel Ramani it is the moment of change. The RSF are entrusted with the safety of the extraction sites and would be entrusted with the routes for the trade of gold which, in a sort of triangulation, would make it fly from Sudan to Dubai and from there to Russia. From these operations for years, until today, a huge amount of money is obtained which would have helped to consolidate and finance Wagner, in all its activities.