The Day Wagner Disrobed the Emperor

For Vladimir Putin, Russia`s president and strongman whose relentless pursuit of his country`s glory against arch-rival the West, together with enormous stranglehold over oligarchical classicism, admitting to an insurrection on the territory he has absolute supremacy, appeared surreal.

A fervent “Mother Russia” patriot, who has triggered this 21st century political upheaval in front of one of the world`s most feared citadel—the Kremlin, is Yevgeny Prigozhin 60, chief of PMC Wagner, a private military company with ties to Putin, and headquartered in Saint Petersburg.

Hot dog seller and convict turned-billionaire, whose Wagner operations in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine are synonymous with bloodshed and transcending human misery, once assured Putin of his country`s intractable resurrection as a military and political power, until the theatrical mutiny on 23 June.

The year 2014, which saw Prigozhin establishing the Wagner Group to support Russian soldiers in Ukraine`s Donbas conflict, heralded Moscow`s fortunes against demographically-changing West, undeniably saddled with controversial, costly and unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Syria, the grand tribunal of the Arab Spring that was imported from Tunisia, saw the PMC mercenaries alongside the Syrian and Russian armies, together with Iran`s strategic and proxy army the Lebanese Hezbollah, battle against Western-backed rebels and subsequently Islamic State—with Chechen and Ingush fighters under Wagner.

Battle-hardened Chechens and Ingush, hail from one of the most unstable and violent regions of Russia the North Caucasus, and are predominantly Sunni Muslims.

In this part of the Middle East where sectarian politics and bloody violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims have shaped regional geopolitics, Wagner relentlessly helped secure the authoritarian rule of pro-Moscow Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus.

The Assad family which has dominated Syrian politics under the Ba`ath Party for more than five decades first with the reign of Hafez, Bashar`s father in 1971, is minority Alawi an offshoot of Shia Islam, hence the deep ideological ties with majority Shia Iran, as well as Hezbollah.

While Assad was bragging about Russia`s superiority over U.S.-led coalition in November 2015, Prigozhin`s men were busy sharpening their barbaric skills in provinces they had captured from IS and rebel forces.

In an act of inimitable and harrowing impunity in 2017, one independent Russian newspaper the Novaya Gazeta, showed video footage of the group torturing a Syrian detainee before decapitating and setting the body alight. The victim Mohammad Taha Ismail Al-Abdullah, 31, was a Syrian army soldier who had deserted.

This heinous act among hundreds, is said to have occurred near al-Shaer oil field in Hom province, where the mercenaries had driven away IS fighters. For every seized mine, gas or oil field, there were lucrative concessions that would benefit pro-Kremlin companies.

Indeed, given Africa`s bloody politics and financial elitism within ruling parties that began during the post-colonial era, Vladimir`s Machiavellian instinct as a former intelligence officer for the KGB, regarding geopolitical ambition and goals—became auspicious.

Continental Africa`s ideological ties and mutual understanding with Putin`s Russia, dates back to the Soviet Union`s heydays, despite endemic racism against blacks living in the country.

However, the psychological brotherhood cultivated during Communism, has endowed Moscow with an invaluable footprint in the resource-rich continent.

According to the United Nations, Africa is home to about 30 percent of the world`s mineral reserves, 12 percent of oil and 8 percent of natural gas reserves.

With 40 percent of the world`s gold and 90 percent of chromium and platinum, the group operates in 20 countries that include Angola, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and neighbouring Zimbabwe.

In 2021, the U.S. treasury department unmasked a front company for Prigozhin, that it said had sponsored bogus monitoring missions in these countries.

Given Western sanctions imposed on the country following its annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia`s foreign policy priorities as a countermeasure notably in defence and economics, had relative successes in various sectors of this economically-dependent Africa.

To achieve these goals within a few years, the right hand man of Russia`s expansionism, has used one potent weapon and nucleus of Soviet power—propaganda machinery.

Its influence has been described by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, as “killing” Ukrainians in occupied territories while chief of military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov, saw “modified psyches” in his compatriots.

Prigozhin`s Internet Research Agency, a disinformation company in a region where access to information is not guaranteed, has gained tremendous clout over host governments.

Absolutely, this propaganda machinery is credited in the island nation of Madagascar, with the electoral victory of former DJ turned-media mogul Andry Rajoelina, over his rival Marc Ravalomanana in the 2018 presidential election.

Growing disenchantment with former colonial powers particularly France, over what its leaders perceive as interference in domestic affairs, saw nearly 2000 Wagner fighters in Central African Republic in 2017.

Under the behest of CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera, who was elected in 2016 amid a brutal conflict between Muslim and Christian fighters known appropriately as Seleka and anti-Balaka forces, Bangui the capital city has become Russia`s defence, economic and military epicentre.

Amidst the propaganda which has sown deep anti-West sentiments among war-weary locals, are diamond, gold and political concessions. between Bangui and Moscow.

The Central Africans laud the presence of Wagner over United Nations military mission as well as E.U. peacekeeping force, despite reports by human rights groups and U.N. that include torture, summary executions and large-scale looting by the mercenaries. Also linked to the group, is the murder of three compatriot journalists in the country in July 2018.

In Mali, as the U.N. peacekeeping mission ends on 30 June, Russia`s strategic windfall has added a notch against former colonial master France, whose troops were withdrawn in 2022, after a decade in the country.

Since the military coup in 2020, when the junta invited the Russians as de facto peacekeepers amidst jubilation from Malians waving Russian flags, Wagner`s trademark of atrocities abound.

Russia`s geopolitical and geostrategic advancement through its military company, has come at a price in some regions.

In Mozambique`s Cabo Delgado province, that is rich in gas and populated by impoverished Muslims, Wagner`s brief adventure in this former Portuguese colony during 2019, was due to massive casualties inflicted by Islamic State-affiliated Ansar al-Sunna, a local group that is still fighting the government in Maputo.

The same year saw Prigozhin`s men who comprise of hard-core criminals, participating in a failed assault on Libya`s capital Tripoli, while under the narcissist Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

However, they are still stationed across the country to secure vast oil fields such as El Sharara, in southwestern Libya, controlled by Haftar fighters.

On one hand, an exclusive leaked copy of the Libyan Public Prosecutor, revealed a series of meetings between Wagner officials and Saif al-Islam, son of slain pro-East dictator Muammar Gaddafi, with the aim of encouraging him to contest the presidential elections amid pro-Gaddafi pollsters and websites, that are controlled by Russians.

Revanchist Putin, who once described the dissolution of the USSR, as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” has seen his territorial dream the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) having hiccups, owing to the Ukraine war.

The five-member EAEU has Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, all former Soviet states.

Ironically, his grand scheme on post-Cold War Africa and post-Soviet Ukraine under Prigozhin, whose insignia extols Adolf Hitler`s favourite composer Wilhelm Richard Wagner, appeared inexorable until the first tanks rolled inside Rostov-on-Don, where the maiden Wagner flights to Syria took off.