{"id":11358,"date":"2023-07-03T06:30:52","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T06:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/2023\/07\/pb-6\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T21:10:59","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T18:10:59","slug":"the-wagner-mutiny-damages-russias-policy-in-africa-pavel-k-baev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/2023\/07\/the-wagner-mutiny-damages-russias-policy-in-africa-pavel-k-baev\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wagner mutiny damages Russia\u2019s policy in Africa – Pavel K. Baev"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The\nresonance from the June 24 mutiny attempted by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of\nthe notorious Wagner group, remains strong, despite the attempts by President\nVladimir Putin to demonstrate a swift restoration of stability in Russia. The\nfull impact on the ability of Russian troops to withstand the Ukrainian\noffensive is yet to manifest itself, but it is already obvious that Russia\u2019s\ninternational posture is seriously undermined. Characteristically, it was only\nPresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan who called Putin with expressions\nof support<\/a>, while China stated its position<\/a>\non the lowest decently possible level \u2013 by publishing a statement from the\npress service of the Foreign Ministry. Putin\u2019s claim for the role of a champion\nin the struggle against the US-dominated world order, which he seeks to replace\nby a vaguely defined \u201cmulti-polarity\u201d is inevitably compromised by his demonstrated\ndomestic weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nconfusion is particularly apparent in Russia\u2019s relations with Africa, which in\nthe last couple of years has become a priority<\/a>\nin Moscow\u2019s foreign policy, even if the shortage of resources for investing in economic\ndevelopment has weakened its diplomatic maneuvering. Putin\u2019s discourse on\ncountering Western neo-colonialism<\/a>\nhas never been convincing, but many political actors were impressed with his\nreadiness to challenge the US-led coalition and are worried about the new\nenergy in consolidating Western unity. Algeria\u2019s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune,\nfor that matter, was the guest of honor at the recent economic forum in St.\nPetersburg and found it opportune to agree \u201cwith\neverything Comrade Putin said<\/a>\u201d. Algeria continues to\nrely on Russian export of arms, despite the growing\nconcerns<\/a> about the reliability of this traditional supplier\nand the quality of Su-30 fighters and S-300 surface-to-air systems, and even\nstaged small-scale joint military\nexercises<\/a> last November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even\nmore important for Moscow are the ties with South Africa, which is supposed to take\ncentral stage in the much-advertised Russia-Africa\nsummit<\/a> scheduled for late July in St. Petersburg. Cyril Ramaphosa,\nSouth Africa\u2019s President, led a recent peace\ninitiative<\/a>, backed by leaders and officials of Egypt, Republic\nof Congo, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia, and the Comoros (which presently holds the\nchairmanship position in the African Union). Neither Ukraine<\/a>,\nnor Russia<\/a>\nwere satisfied with the content of this initiative, but both found it\nappropriate to welcome it, so a modicum of success was achieved in terms of African\npublic relations. A key controversy presently is about Putin\u2019s\nparticipation<\/a> in the BRICS summit to be held in August\nin Johannesburg in August (the date is not as yet agreed), because of the\narrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, whose authority is\nrecognized by Brazil and South Africa, but not by China, India, and Russia. Even\nif some sort of special arrangement is invented, Putin may find it inopportune\nto travel far from the Kremlin, because the mutiny, short and pathetic as it\nwas, exposed the dubious\nloyalty<\/a> of the elites.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russian\ndiplomatic offensive in Africa has never worked in synch with the other\ninstrument of Moscow\u2019s foreign policy \u2013 conflict manipulation by the deployment\nof Wagner mercenaries. For that matter, none of the states involved in the\nAfrican peace initiative has had any encounters with the Wagner group, which has\nturned the Central African Republic (CAR) into the main\nhub<\/a>\nof its activities since late 2017. The track record of Wagner interventions is\nfar from stellar: The assault on Tripoli in spring 2020 resulted in a bad\ndefeat<\/a>, and the short deployment to Mozambique in autumn\n2019 was also\na fiasco<\/a>. Nevertheless, the Wagner group, reinforced even with\nsome airpower, managed to consolidate\ncontrol<\/a> over some oilfields in Libya, and the arrival of these\nmercenaries to Mali<\/a>\nin late 2021 alarmed many stake holders in stability in the wider Sahel region\nto this new threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia\u2019s\naggression in Ukraine determined a profound transformation of the Wagner group,\nwhich became a 50.000-strong fighting force, comprised from gangs of criminals\nrecruited in prisons, and the protracted battle for Bakhmut marked the high\npoint in its expansion. This mutation, however, was poorly compatible with its\nrole in Africa, where deniability was always a major feature. The US designated\nthe Wagner group as a \u201ctransnational\ncriminal organization<\/a>\u201d, and France more recently called the EU\nto list it as a \u201cterrorist\ngroup<\/a>\u201d, and these sanctions have quite possible prevented\nthe expansion of its activities to Burkina\nFaso<\/a>,\nfrom which the French forces were withdrawn in spring 2023. The June 24 mutiny\nresulted in new\nsanctions<\/a>, but more importantly, it has compelled the governments\nthat employ the Wagner group, first of all CAR\nand Mali<\/a>, to re-evaluate the risks of these contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n\u201csafe haven\u201d that Prigozhin is granted in Belarus may turn out to be a rather uncomfortable\nprison, as Putin cannot forgive the humiliation and will find a way to settle\nscores with the \u201ctraitor\u201d. It will be difficult for Russian special services to\nreconstitute the Wagner group in a more controllable format and under a\ndifferent name, and those mercenaries who opt for relocation\nto Belarus<\/a> may find themselves not in a new base, but behind\nbars. Moscow may try to sustain the para-military operations in Africa, but the\nkey people running the clandestine networks, such as the logistical\nhub in Cameroon<\/a>, are too closely associated with\nPrigozhin \u2013 and are duly targeted by personal sanctions. The reputation that\nthe Wagner group has built over years (dirty as its is) cannot be transferred\nto newly-established quasi-private para-military enterprises (even if owned\nby Gazprom<\/a>), so even Russian\nexperts suggest<\/a> that the demand for semi-official\nmilitary services in Africa would probably be fulfilled by China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moscow\nmay find it necessary, rather than merely convenient, to pretend that the sharp\nspasm of domestic political crisis has passed with no lasting consequences. It\nis set to find, nevertheless, that its space for both diplomatic intrigues and\nmilitary interventions in Africa has contracted sharply and irreversibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pavel K. Baev, Dr., Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Pavel K. Baev is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). He is also Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution (Washington D.C.), Senior Associate Researcher at the Institut Fran\u00e7ais des Relations Internationales(IFRI, Paris), and Senior Associate Research Fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI, Milan). His research interests include the transformation of the Russian military, the energy and security dimensions of the Russian-European relations, Russia\u2019s Arctic policy, Russia-China partnership, post-Soviet conflict management in the Caucasus and the Caspian Basin, and Russia\u2019s Middle East policy, which is supported by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. He writes a weekly column in Eurasia Daily Monitor<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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To cite this work:<\/strong> Pavel K. Baev, “The Wagner mutiny damages Russia\u2019s policy in Africa”, Panorama<\/em>, Online, 03 July 2023, https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/blog\/2023\/07\/03\/pb-6\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Copyright@UIKPanorama.<\/em> All on-line and print rights reserved. Opinions expressed in works published by the Panorama<\/em> belongs to the authors alone unless otherwise stated, and do not imply endorsement by the IRCT, Global Academy, or the Editors\/Editorial Board of Panorama. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The resonance from the June 24 mutiny attempted by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the notorious Wagner group, remains strong, despite the attempts by President Vladimir Putin to demonstrate a swift restoration of stability in Russia. The full impact on the ability of Russian troops to withstand the Ukrainian offensive is yet to manifest itself, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":10133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[486,507],"tags":[656,592,589,760,621,798],"class_list":["post-11358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-russia","tag-english","tag-middle-east-north-africa","tag-moscow","tag-putin-en","tag-russia","tag-wagner-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}