Report Reveals How Wagner Group Uses Africa As Terror Laboratory: “Straight Out Of A Nightmare” | War Ukraine and Russia

LOOK. Who are the Russian Wagner mercenaries?

Those who followed the Wagner group’s rebellion against Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent days would almost forget, but the paramilitary group that claims to rid Russia of corruption and nepotism has a terrible reputation. This became clear in Bachmut, where Prigozhin killed tens of thousands of his men. But he also appears to be ruthless in Africa.

That’s according to a report published today by ‘The Sentry’, which takes on international crime networks that profit from violent conflict and repression. In barely five years, the Wagner Group turned the Central African Republic into a strategic bridgehead for Russia. The private militia tested and perfected a “blueprint for domination” that appears to be “straight out of a nightmare,” it sounds, using “orchestrated violence” so extreme that even hardened soldiers and local militias under Wagner’s control say that they live in a constant “state of terror”.

Witnesses tell how instructors from the Wagner group give military training lasting from one to six months. Recruits learn to use handguns, fight hand-to-hand, spy, extract sensitive information, and use torture techniques. The latter ranges from targeted kidnappings to cutting off hands, fingers and legs, removing nails, using knives to cut flesh, strangling and burning people alive.

During operations, the motto is “sweeping and cleaning up without leaving traces”. Entire camps, villages, mining sites and rural areas are wiped out. Everyone is killed, including women and children. “We kill villagers and bury them or throw them in the bushes,” someone testifies. Several soldiers say that the intention of the Wagner group is to sow terror and instill fear in everyone, not only rebels but also the general population and the military and mercenaries under their control.

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The Central African Republic had the highest death rate in the world last year, according to a report from Columbia University in New York. It was more than twice as high as elsewhere. This is directly linked to the presence of the Wagner group in the African country. Wagner is also said to be delivering heavy military equipment “at a pace unprecedented since the imposition of the arms embargo in 2013”.

“The Central African Republic has become the terror laboratory of the Wagner group,” says researcher Nathalia Dukhan of ‘The Sentry’. “With a limited number of military personnel and the active support of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, Wagner has managed in just five years to infiltrate and take over the country’s military command structure, political and economic systems.”

Wagner takes advantage of President Touadéra’s increasing need for protection from armed rebels to plunder the country’s natural resources, particularly gold and diamonds. Mining companies affiliated with Wagner – such as Lobaye Invest, Midas Resources and Diamville – extract them from the ground and export them. The minerals then disappear into a transnational network of companies and shadowy operations, stretching from Russia to Madagascar, Cameroon and Sudan.

The Wagner group has been doing the same in other African countries since 2016. According to The Sentry, it is part of a Russian strategy of “international expansion and control”. Dukhan calls it “a new form of ultra-violent colonialism”. She therefore calls on the international community to act as quickly as possible against this threat. “Otherwise Wagner’s predatory terrorist network will spread and wreak havoc wherever it takes root.”

The Sentry’s recommendations include imposing Western sanctions against the Wagner group and labeling it a terrorist organization.