List of African countries with some kind of engagement with Russia’s private military

Although best known as a mercenary organization that provides hired guns to autocratic regimes, the Wagner Group is the mercenary arm of a complex network of corporate entities that cooperate and are interconnected, including companies involved in extractive industries such as mining, political strategy and influence organizations, and the aforementioned mercenaries.

This is according to the Grey Report, which has likened the group’s activities in Africa to that of an organized crime group.

While this assessment is contentious, there is no denying the increased activities of the Wagner group on the African continent.

“Since its first documented military engagement in Africa, in late 2017, Wagner has expanded aggressively. It has deployed troops to five African countries (to date), while groups linked to Prigozhin have been present in some capacity (either military, economic or political) in over a dozen African countries,” the Grey Zone Report states.

Despite being a private company, Wagner has strong ties to the Russian government, the report further claims.

Operationally, the organization has historically been associated with the Defense Ministry and the military intelligence division of GU (previously GRU).

Also, Wagner has used Russian military facilities, maintained a base in Russia alongside the GU, and received other forms of assistance, according to investigations into Wagner (such as, in one case, passports issued to Wagner troops by the same Moscow office that issues to the Defence Ministry and the GU).

In a nutshell, the report argues that Wagner’s involvement in Africa is strategically tied to the Russian state.

Internal documents leaked in 2019 describe Wagner’s strategy to exert influence in Africa, with one of the group’s aims being to strong-arm’ Western powers (the US, UK, and France) out of the region and disrupt pro-Western political movements, which is more akin to a Russian foreign-policy entity than a profit-seeking enterprise.

Similarly, the Russian government has supported Wagner’s actions, pressing the UN for an exemption to the arms embargo in CAR, allowing Wagner military instructors to begin operating there.

“It appears to be a mutually beneficial relationship: while Wagner has a profit-making aim (through leveraging access to natural resources and direct cash payments from governments that contract the mercenary group), this aim also often appears to align with Russian state interests overseas, as the services that the Wagner Group offers also promote Russia’s political interests and seek to displace Western influence,” the report reads.

With that said, here are the African countries with some form of connection to the Wagner group.