Our Correspondent | Africa Guardian While Moscow’s ally Bashar al-Assad was losing his grip on Syria, Russian-backed mercenaries were bolstering the presidency of Faustin-Archange Touadéra in the conflict-ridden Central African Republic (CAR). Protected by the Wagner Group, a private Russian military force, Touadéra remains in power despite mounting resistance from armed groups like the Coalition of Patriots for Change…
Our Correspondent | Africa Guardian The fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has cast uncertainty over the future of Russia’s military bases in the region. The naval base in Tartus and the airbase in Hmeimim—Russia’s only military outposts outside the former Soviet Union—serve as critical hubs for the Kremlin’s activities in both Africa and the Middle East. Without these…
Our Correspondent | Africa Guardian Despite the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group continues to maintain its presence and operations in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali, where the mercenaries remain favored by local leaders. In an effort to centralize and reorganize its operations, Moscow has sought to merge Wagner’s African interests into a new entity, the…
Wagner Group mercenaries have launched an “informational war” in Africa, fighting against democracy by stoking anti-Western sentiment sweeping across some of the poorest nations in the world, experts have warned. The result could be catastrophic, both domestically and abroad, with a seismic uptick in violence causing the death of thousands and a potential mass migration to Europe, including, eventually,…
The crash comes two months after Yevgeny Prigozhin launched a short-lived rebellion — seen as the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority since he came to power. The head of the Wagner mercenary group, which in June attempted to topple Russia’s military leadership, was on board a plane that crashed on Wednesday, with all passengers killed, Russian…
Eyewitnesses report hearing two explosions at time of crash BBC’s Monitoring’s Russia Editor, Vitaly Shevchenko, says speculation is spreading about the plane crash that Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin was believed to be a passenger on. “I’ve seen a number of video clips filmed by eyewitnesses who said that they had heard two explosions and they drew the conclusion that…