Indian Council of World Affairs

Abstract: Russia has restructured, reorganised and rebranded the Wagner Group after the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, with the change and new structure more visible in Africa.

On August 23 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group (WG), died along with the other top leadership in an aeroplane crash while travelling to St. Petersburg from Moscow. While many Western sources alleged that Kremlin wasbehind his death, President Putin in a Valdai Discussion Club, a Moscow-based thinktank, meeting denied any such involvement and said that it was an onboard grenade explosion that caused the crash.[i] Initially, social media channels linked to the WG had alleged that the plane was shot down by the Russian air defences over the Tver Oblast, approximately 300 km west of Moscow.[ii] 

On 24 June 2023, Prigozhin had led a short-lived mutiny when his forces crossed border from the Ukrainian side into Russia and briefly occupied the Rostov city and from there launched a “march of justice” towards Moscow demanding the removal of Russia’s top defence brass. Prigozhin’s action had caused significant embarrassment for Kremlin as well as a precarious internal security crisis amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Prigozhin’s mutiny had come after he alleged the Russian military leadership of incompetency in the ongoing war in Ukraine and sought their removal. According to many reports, the then Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had been pushing for the direct control of the Private Military Companies (PMCs), including the Wagner Group, fighting in Ukraine. This plan of reorganisation and regularisation of various “volunteer formations” was not acceptable to Prigozhin and he openly rejected signing new contracts with the Defence Ministry.[iii] 

Although Russia is home to many Private Military Companies (PMCs), it is the WG, which is the most recognisable and most talked about because of its active participation in the Russian military operations in eastern Ukraine and Syria[iv]. Besides, since 2017, the WG has functioned as an extended tool of Russian foreign policy in many African nations and has brought significant influence for the Kremlin in the continent along with furthering its own economic goals. 

After Prigozhin and his close associate Dmitry Utkin, a former military intelligence officer who had founded the WG and on whose callsign the group was named, lost their lives in the plane crash, the Russian government began the process of effectively asserting its control over the group by restructuring and rebranding it and directly bringing it under the control of the Ministry of Defence with the intelligence agencies functioning as the nodal agencies. 

To firmly establish Kremlin’s control over the functions of the former WG operatives and to avoid an embarrassing repeat of the June mutiny, Russia has effectively divided and weakened the structures created by Prigozhin. Various domains of the group, such as business, armed formations and information networks, have been divided between the MoD and Military Intelligence (GRU), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the Federal Security Service (FSB).[v] While the armed component of the WG was put under the MoD and, to some extent, the National Guards of Russia, its economic resources and the media assets have gone to Yevgeny’s son Pavel, the Russian Oligarchs and the SVR, respectively, as part of a major restructuring of Prigozhin’s empire.[vi] There is, however, a paucity of information on the whereabouts of Pavel Prigozhin and his role in the post-Wagner restructuring after the death of his father. 

Wagner Group’s operations in the Ukraine were subsumed by other Russian state and paramilitary units and non-Wagner structures, while many of them relocated to Belarus, which had brokered a peace deal between Moscow and Prigozhin and allowed the mercenaries to train on its soil.[vii] According to a report of the British Defence Intelligence, the Russian National Guard, Rosgvardia, incorporated three former Wagner assault detachments into its first Volunteer Corps to reportedly serve in Ukraine and Africa on a six- and nine-month contract, respectively.[viii] After a successful mediation by Belarus, WG fighters, after the end of the mutiny, had moved to Belarus and stayed in camps. At least 400 former Wagner operatives are still active in Belarus, where they are now engaged as military trainers for the Belarusian military.[ix]However, an August 26,2024 Reuters, in an unverified report, cited a Wagner source saying that the Wagner has no presence in Ukraine any more and neither does its operatives form part of either the National Guards or in the ranks of the Russian Ministry of Defence.[x] 

Apart from Ukraine and Syria, the Russian PMCs have also operated in Africa since 2017, And it is in Africa that the largest restructuring (along with rebranding) of the group has been done. Contrary to many opinions that the death of Prigozhin may led to a significant jolt to Russian interests in Africa, the Kremlin has not only strengthened its grip on the Wagne remnants in Africa but has also been working towards facilitating a smooth transition to a post-Wagner era without compromising on its interests. 

The Wagner operatives first appeared in Sudan in 2017 and then in the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2018 as military instructors.In the CAR, the group soon transitioned into an active combat role in 2020 in support of President Faustin-Archange Touadera besides also supporting his re-election campaign in 2021.[xi] Apart from the Sudan and the CAR, the WGremained active inLibya, Mali, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Mozambique, where the group primarily focused on security issues and protecting troubled regimes[xii] from both rebels and Islamic militants. 

It is important to note that the WG has mainly operated in countries facing instability and having a troubled relationship with the West due to imperial legacies and political differences. The Sahel is one such region where the Wagner took advantage of Western withdrawal (removal of the French continent from the Sahel region) and intensified its engagement with the region. Such was the WG involvement that when 84 of its operatives, along with 47 Malian soldiers, were killed in an ambush, on 27^th July this year, by a coalition of Tuareg separatists and Jihadi militants of the al-Qaida-affiliated Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, it was considered by scholars as the most significant loss for the group in the history of its African engagement.[xiii] The severity of the situation was visible when the Mali, Niger and later Burkina Faso cut their ties with Ukraine, citing Kyiv’s involvement in the ambush on the side of the separatist and jihadi forces.[xiv] 

The future of the WG in Africa was prominently discussed among Russian military bloggers and many posts were made on Russian Telegram hinting at a possible restructuring and rebranding of the WG in Africa.[xv] The expectations proved right when the WG in Africa was rebranded as the Afrikanskiy Korpus or the Africa Corps (AC),[xvi] the process for which had started in August just after the death of Prigozhin, with the operational control of the AC transferred to the Russian defence ministry.[xvii] The non-Wagner smaller structures set up by other Russian entities, however, have been allowed to continue their operations.[xviii] 

The formation of the Africa Corps as a new unit under the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation can be corroborated by the official Telegram channel of the Corps, which shares regular updates on its activities and operational mandate.[xix] As per the posts on the channel, the decision to create the Africa Corps was taken after the Russia-Africa Summit in July 2023 in order “to expand the Russian military presence on the African continent and the Middle East.”[xx] As far as the recruitment for the AC is concerned, the same Telegram post claimed to prioritise “military personnel with combat experience who participated in the Special Military Operation, as well as former and current employees of the Wagner Group.”[xxi] 

African Initiative, a pro-Russian media platform that was founded in October last year to breach the information gap between Russia and Africa, while citing a Russian MoD source, said that with the formation of the AC, the Defence ministry aims to “help sovereign African states to counter the West’s neo-colonial influence, undermining its resource base, and strengthen Russia’s equal cooperation with the African countries.”[xxii] Per the platform, the Russian Deputy Defence Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was made the man in charge of the new structure. 

According to a report from a Russian news agency, Vedomosti, recruitments for the newly formed Africa Corps started in December 2023, and the recruits were deployed (or waiting to be deployed) to the countries where the WG earlier operated, although not limited to that.[xxiii] Burkina Faso and Niger, for example, have emerged as the most recent clients of the Africa Corps operations. In Burkina Faso, a contingent of 100 AC operatives (with a promised future contingent of 200 men) landed in January 2024 to function as military trainers, providing security to the leader of the country as well as fighting Jihadi groups. On similar lines, a contingent of 100 AC troops arrived in Niger on 12 April 2024 to train the Nigerien forces as part of a military cooperation agreement signed between Moscow and Niamey in December 2023. What was interesting about the Niger deployment was the fact that the AC troops were deployed at the same airbase from where an American contingent was already operating. However, the American troops have now completely withdrawn from Niger. 

A look at the operational deployments of the AC reflects the shifting and evolving Russian priorities in Africa, particularly in the Sahel region, where an attempt is being made to create an arc of Kremlin-friendly states from the Gulf of Guinea to the Atlantic. As the Sahel region remains the centre of Moscow’s Africa strategy, given the new developments in the region and CAR’s renewed attempts at restoring broken relations with the West, particularly France, Russian activities in the CAR have taken a backseat. This is probably the reason why CAR is the only country in Africa where the former Wagner operatives have been allowed to operate without any significant restructuring.[xxiv] 

The reorganisation and rebranding of the former WG mean that Moscow is not willing to sacrifice the strategic and financial benefits the Russian-based PMCs bring to the table. From Ukraine and Syria to Africa, these PMCs, particularly the former WG,have been quite beneficial for Moscow, bringing necessary strategic, financial, as well as diplomatic influence. This has become a striking necessity, especially after the war began in Ukraine, as the countries in Africa not only have valuable diplomatic benefits but also help Moscow overcome unprecedented Western sanctions. The complete overhaul of the Wagner structure in Africa and elsewhere and expansion of the operation of the Africa Corps to new countries in Africa indicates the continued and growing importance of the continent in Russian strategic policy. However, the Russian establishment is cautious this time and not offering any significant operational autonomyto the successors of theWagner group and has now fully consolidated its grip on the PMC structures in Africa and other places of their operations.

*****

*Aman Kumar, Research Associate, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal.

Endnotes        

[i] Pjotr Sauer. “Onboard grenade blast caused plane crash that killed Wagner boss, claims Putin,” The Guardian, October 5, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/hand-grenade-explosion-caused-plane-crash-that-killed-wagner-boss-says-putin (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[ii] Frank Gardner, Robert Greenall and Jaroslav Lukiv. “Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin presumed dead after Russian plane crash,” BBC, August 24, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66599733 (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[iii]Matt Murphy. “Ukraine War: Russia moves to take direct control of Wagner Group”, BBC, June 11, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65871232 (Accessed August 20,2024)

[iv] Anna Maria Dyner. “The role of Private Military Contractors in Russian Foreign Policy,” The Polish Institute of International Affairs, May 04, 2018, https://pism.pl/publications/The_Role_of_Private_Military_Contractors_in_Russian_Foreign_Policy (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[v] Filip Bryjka and Jedrzej Czerep. “Africa Corps-A new iteration of Russia’s old military presence in Africa,” The Polish Institute of International Affairs. May 2024, https://www.pism.pl/webroot/upload/files/Raport/PISM%20Report%20Africa%20Corps_.pdf (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Jaroslav Lukiv. “Wagner mercenaries have arrived in Belarus, Ukraine confirms,” BBC, July 15, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66211121 (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[viii] Ministry of Defence. X post. February 01, 2024, https://x.com/DefenceHQ/status/1752975835710046472 (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[ix] Filip Bryjka and Jedrzej Czerep. “Africa Corps-A new iteration of Russia’s old military presence in Africa,” The Polish Institute of International Affairs. May 2024, https://www.pism.pl/webroot/upload/files/Raport/PISM%20Report%20Africa%20Corps_.pdf (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[x]Reuters. “Russia’s Wagner says it is not fighting in Ukraine”, Reuters, August 26, 2024 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-wagner-says-it-is-not-fighting-ukraine-2024-08-26/ (Accessed July 26, 2024)

[xi] Global Digest. “The Wagner Group and Russian PMCs: Where do they operate now?” Global Digest, July 05, 2024, https://www.globalguardian.com/global-digest/wagner-group-russian-pmcs (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[xii] William Rampe. “What Is Russia’s Wagner Group Doing in Africa?” Council on Foreign Relations, May 23, 2024, https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russias-wagner-group-doing-africa (Accessed August 16, 2024).

[xiii] Samir Bhattacharya. “Sahel: The new front in the Ukraine-Russia war,” Observer Research Foundation, August 13, 2024,https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/sahel-the-new-front-in-the-ukraine-russia-war (Accessed August 17, 2024).

[xiv] Shola Lawal. “Mali’s spat with Kyiv: Is the Russia-Ukraine war spilling over Africa,” Al-Jazeera, August 08, 2024,https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/8/malis-spat-with-kyiv-is-the-russia-ukraine-war-spilling-over-into-africa (Accessed August 17, 2024).

[xvi] Ilya Lakstygal. “What is known about Russia’s Afrika Korps,” Vedomosti, December 22, 2023, https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2023/12/22/1012398-chto-izvestno-ob-afrikanskom-korpuse-rossii (Accessed August 17, 2024).

[xvii] Nicodemus Mind. “Russia’s Africa Corps- more than old wine in a new bottle,” Institute for Security Studies, March 07, 2024, https://issafrica.org/iss-today/russias-africa-corps-more-than-old-wine-in-a-new-bottle (Accessed August 17, 2024).

[xviii] Ilya Lakstygal. “What is known about Russia’s Afrika Korps,” Vedomosti, December 22, 2023, https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2023/12/22/1012398-chto-izvestno-ob-afrikanskom-korpuse-rossii (Accessed August 17, 2024.

[xix] African Corps. Telegram account, January 09, 2024, https://web.telegram.org/k/#@TheAfricanCorps

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Ibid.

[xxii]African Initiative. “Routes of the African Corps. Why Russia is expanding its military presence in Africa,” African Initiative, November 21, 2023, https://afrinz.ru/en/2023/11/routes-of-the-african-corps-why-russia-is-expanding-its-military-presence-in-africa/ (Accessed August 17, 2024).

[xxiii] Ilya Lakstygal. “What is known about Russia’s Afrika Korps,” Vedomosti, December 22, 2023, https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2023/12/22/1012398-chto-izvestno-ob-afrikanskom-korpuse-rossii (Accessed August 17, 2024).

[xxiv] Filip Bryjka and Jedrzej Czerep. “Africa Corps-A new iteration of Russia’s old military presence in Africa,” The Polish Institute of International Affairs. May 2024, https://www.pism.pl/webroot/upload/files/Raport/PISM%20Report%20Africa%20Corps_.pdf (Accessed August 16, 2024).