LONDON - What’s happening? Russia’s Wagner group has a network of businesses, many of which hinge on the extraction of natural resources, in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali. The United States last week imposed sanctions against the Wagner-affiliated companies which it said “engaged in illicit gold dealings to fund the Wagner Group to sustain and expand its armed forces.”
→ What do analysts say? The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. think tank, in a recent report stated that since 2017, Wagner — in coordination with the Russian state — has exchanged paramilitary services in African states for access to lucrative natural resources such as gold, gemstones, oil, natural gas, and timber.
“Its profitable resource exploitation activities have grown in importance in the wake of Western sanctions following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine,” wrote the report’s authors.
→ For example? CSIS looked at the Ndassima gold mine in CAR which it called one of the military group’s most significant gold mining operations. The think tank said Midas Resources, alleged to be a shell company linked to Wagner, has led operations for around three years.
“Wagner and its various shell companies have established relationships — both personal and legal, as in mining concessions — that will likely be difficult to dissolve and replace,” concludes CSIS. “It is uncertain who will control the Wagner network moving forward and how their priorities may alter the current state of activities.
What’s next for Wagner in CAR?
“It would be difficult for Moscow to remove Wagner from CAR then replicate its success with another entity,” CSIS associate director Catrina Doxsee, one of the report’s authors, told Semafor Africa. “As Russia debates the future of the Wagner Group and [its leader] Yevgeny Prigozhin struggles to retain some portion of his business empire, it seems likely that Moscow will attempt to install new leadership of Wagner in CAR without dismantling the existing operational infrastructure.”
Prigozhin’s exact whereabouts are unknown and it’s unclear whether his fighters will move to Belarus, as previously agreed. Semafor’s Jenna Moon has gathered insights into what we know so far.
