After Niger’s junta ousted the African country’s elected leadership last month, one of the coup leaders asked Wagner’s “help” to stay in power, according to diplomatic sources.
The Niger coup, which is the third in Western Africa after Mali and Burkina Faso ousted what many call pro-Western governments, has given an opportunity to the Russian mercenary group to cement its presence in Africa, experts say.
Wagner’s boldness became obvious in June when its chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a mutiny against the regular Russian military who he accuses of deploying wrong strategies against the Ukrainians.
“What happened in Niger has been brewing for years,” said Prigozhin, claiming that the military coup was a reaction to growing dissatisfaction with the Western power including Niger’s former coloniser, France.
France, Italy and other countries have pulled out their citizens from Niger after the July 26 coup. Days later thousands of people joined a protest in which some people waved Russian flags and attacked the French embassy.
“The population suffers. And this is (the reason for) love for PMC Wagner, this is the high efficiency of PMC Wagner. Because a thousand soldiers of PMC Wagner are able to establish order and destroy terrorists, preventing them from harming the peaceful population of states,” said Prigozhin. The mercenary group has lent soldiers to African governments to fight terrorist organisations.
Moscow has been careful in publicly backing the putschists.
Unlike Wagner chief’s clear support to the Niger military, the Russian foreign ministry has taken a softer approach, calling upon the coup leaders to release the elected President Mohamed Bazoum from custody.
But Wagner’s presence in Africa is not only about Prigozhin’s continuing influence but also about Russian political interests, making him “an indispensable man” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, says Edward Erickson, a former American military officer and a retired professor of military history at the Department of War Studies at the Marine Corps University.
“Russian influence and foreign policy in Niger, Mali, the Central African Republic, Syria and Libya absolutely depends on the Wagner Group. The Wagner Company is far more than a gang of ex-convict thugs. It conducts sophisticated disinformation operations, trains and equips local armed forces, and provides logistical support to its client states,” Erickson tells TRT World.
“Wagner is now very experienced in these kinds of ‘Gray Zone’ operations and the Russian military does not have the expertise or the people to replace Wagner,” he says. Prigozhin knows this, which explains “Putin’s gentle treatment” of Wagner during his rebellion that Prigozhin described as a move against Russia’s “incompetent” military leadership, says Erickson.
As a result, if Putin dismantled Prigozhin’s mercenaries without finding an equally formidable replacement, which means another group of mercenaries loyal to the Kremlin, he would inflict a serious blow to Russia’s global geopolitical interests from Syria to Niger, says Erickson.
Sami Hamdi, a Middle Eastern political analyst and head of the International Interest, a political risk group, agrees with Erickson.
“Wagner remains a central component of Russia’s foreign policy in Africa, and an essential tool through which Russia enhances cooperation with the regional powers such as the UAE in arenas such as Libya and Sudan,“ Hamdi tells TRT World.
Therefore, Putin would be very reluctant to discard such a valuable tool over a disagreement regarding military operations in Ukraine, according to Hamdi.
In a recent escalation, Wagner showed once again its military value as its troops apparently moved toward across the Suwalki gap, a crucial corridor, which connects Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave with Belarus, a pro-Russian state, located between Poland and Lithuania, the two NATO states, aiming to increase pressure on the Western bloc.
Wagner’s rise with the Bakhmut battle
Prior to the Ukraine war, Wagner was active in various conflicts from Syria to Mali, but the Russian state did not officially associate its military operations with the mercenary group until the meat-grinding Bakhmut battle in eastern Ukraine last year, says Esref Yalinkilicli, a Eurasia expert.
Source: TRTworld.com