Wagner in Africa: How the Russian mercenary group has rebranded - BBC News

Russia has taken the mercenary group into its intelligence services, using it to destabilise Africa.

2 days agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, AFPBy Joe Inwood & Jake TacchiBBC Newsnight & BBC Eye InvestigationsRussia is offering governments in Africa a "regime survival package" in exchange for access to strategically important natural resources, a major new report has found.

Internal Russian government documents, seen by the BBC, also detail how it is working to change mining laws in West Africa, with the ambition of dislodging Western companies from an area of strategic importance.

This is part of the process of the Russian government taking over the businesses of the Wagner mercenary group, broken up after a failed coup in June 2023.

The multibillion dollar operations are now mostly being run as the Russian "Expeditionary Corps", managed by the man accused of being behind the attempt to murder Sergei Skripal using the Novichok nerve agent on the streets of the UK - a charge Russia has denied.

"This is the Russian state coming out of the shadows in its Africa policy," says Jack Watling, land warfare specialist at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) and one of the report's authors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-68322230

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