Russia's Wagner Mercenaries Face Uncertainty after the Presumed Death of Its Leader in a Plane Crash

The Wagner Group's presence extends from the ancient battlegrounds of Syria to the deserts of sub-Saharan Africa, projecting the Kremlin's global influence with mercenaries accused of using brutal force and profiting on mineral riches they seized.

But that was under Yevgeny Prigozhin, who in what could have been his final video released earlier this week appeared in military fatigues and held an assault rifle from an unidentified dry and dusty plain as he boasted that Wagner is “making Russia even greater on all continents and Africa even more free.”

On Wednesday, a private jet carrying Prigozhin and his top lieutenants of the mercenary group crashed northwest of Moscow, two months after he led an armed rebellion that challenged the authority of President Vladimir Putin. There is wide speculation that Prigozhin, who is presumed dead, was targeted for his uprising, although the Kremlin has denied involvement.

That crash has raised questions about the future of the Wagner Group.

In African countries where Wagner provided security against groups like al-Qaida and the ISIS extremist group, officials and commentators predict Russia will likely maintain its presence, placing the forces under new leadership.

Others, however, say Prigozhin built deep, personal connections that Moscow could find challenging to replace quickly.

Africa is vitally important to Russia — economically and politically.

This summer, Wagner helped secure a national referendum in the Central African Republic that cemented presidential power; it is a key partner for Mali’s army in battling armed rebels; and it contacted the military junta in Niger that wants its services following a coup.

Expanding ties and undercutting Western influence in Africa is a top priority as the Kremlin seeks new allies amid its war in Ukraine, where Wagner forces also helped win a key battle. Africa’s 54 nations are the largest voting bloc at the UN, and Moscow has actively worked to rally their support for its invasion.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said Friday that Wagner's forces "are destabilizing, and we’ve encouraged countries in Africa to condemn their presence as well as their actions.”

On Thursday, the Republican Front in the Central African Republic, allied with the ruling party, reiterated its support for Russia and Wagner, saying they were “determined to fight alongside the African people as they struggle for self-determination.”

Wagner forces have served as personal bodyguards for President Faustin Archange Touadera, protecting the capital of Bangui from rebel threats and helping secure a July 30 constitutional referendum that could extend his power indefinitely.

Central African activist and blogger Christian Aime Ndotah said the country's cooperation with Russia would be unaffected by new leadership with Wagner, which has been “well-established” there for years.

But some in the Central African Republic denounce the mercenaries, and the UN peacekeeping mission there criticized them in 2021 for human rights abuses.

“A state’s security is its sovereignty. You can’t entrust the security of a state to a group of mercenaries,” said Jean Serge Bokassa, former public security minister.

Nathalia Dukhan, senior investigator at The Sentry, predicted the Kremlin will try to bring Africa closer into its orbit.

“Wagner has been a successful tool for Russia to expand its influence efficiently and brutally,” she said. “In the midst of all the turmoil between Putin and Prigozhin, the Wagner operation in Central Africa only deepened, with increased direct involvement by the Russian government.”

High-ranking Wagner operatives have built relationships in Mali and the Central African Republic and understand the terrain, said Lou Osborn of All Eyes on Wagner, a project focusing on the group.

“They have a good reputation, which they can sell to another Russian contender. It wouldn’t be surprising if a new organization took them over,” Osborn said, noting that Russian military contractors in Ukraine, such as Redut and Convoy, have recently expressed a desire to do business in Africa.

Redut was created by the Russian Defense Ministry, which has sought to put Wagner under its control. Following the June mutiny, Putin said the mercenaries could sign contracts with the ministry and keep serving under one of the group’s top commanders, Andrei Troshev. It wasn’t clear how many troops accepted, but media reports put the number at a few thousand.

The Kremlin still could face challenges in keeping the strong presence in Africa that Prigozhin helped establish.

Former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov argued Prigozhin may have been allowed to continue his post-activities because Russian authorities had to find people who would take over his work.

“Time was needed to create the new channels, new mechanisms of control over those projects,” he said. “And it’s not a fact that they have been successful in that. It’s possible that they have failed and the Kremlin may lose some of those projects.”

Britain's Defense Ministry said Prigozhin's demise "would almost certainly have a deeply destabilizing effect on the Wagner Group.”

“His personal attributes of hyper-activity, exceptional audacity, a drive for results and extreme brutality permeated Wagner and are unlikely to be matched by any successor,” it said.

On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on Wagner’s future.

For Prigozhin, who created Wagner in 2014, its missions weren’t simply about advancing Russia’s global clout. His contractors in Syria, Libya, Sudan and elsewhere tapped the mineral and energy wealth of those countries to enrich himself.

Central African Republic lawmaker and opposition leader Martin Ziguélé said Wagner was active in gold mining, timber and other industries — without paying taxes.

“We can only conclude that it’s plundering,” he said.

Prigozhin reached a deal with Putin after the rebellion that saw Wagner mercenaries move to Belarus in exchange for amnesty, and the mercenary boss spoke repeatedly since then about expanding his activities in Africa. He was seen courting African officials at a recent summit in St. Petersburg.

He quickly welcomed last month's military coup that toppled Niger President Mohamed Bazoum. The junta reached out to Wagner, but the group's response was unclear and there’s no visible presence of Russian mercenaries there — other than crowds waving Russian and Wagner flags at protests.

While US officials didn’t confirm that Russia or Wagner had any role in the coup, there are fears the Kremlin could exploit it to weaken Western positions in West Africa, where the mercenaries already have a presence in Mali and Burkina Faso.

Niger’s residents say Prigozhin’s presumed death won’t stop Russia from trying to expand its influence.

“Our belief is that Russia wants to get a base here and to be popular. It’s obvious they want to be here,” Niamey tailor Baraou Souleimanin told The Associated Press. Since the coup, he said he’s sewn more than 150 Russian flags in a month.

“We pray that Allah strengthens the relationship with (Wagner) to continue the deal. If the relationship is good and strong, it’s possible they’ll continue with the deal even after his death,” he said Thursday.

In neighboring Mali, a military junta that seized power in 2020 expelled French troops, diplomats, and media, and ordered an end to a decade-long UN. peacekeeping mission.

Though not officially recognized by Malian authorities, Wagner forces have been known to operate in the rural north, where rebel and extremist groups have eroded state power and tormented communities.

Human Rights Watch says Mali’s army, together with suspected Wagner mercenaries, committed summary executions, looting, forced disappearances and other abuses.

“What we have experienced through Wagner is the massacre of our people,” said Ali Nouhoum Diallo, former president of the national assembly.

Timbuktu resident Youba Khalifa said Wagner's presence in Mali wouldn't change after Prigozhin because "they’re going to replace him with another leader.”

Although Prigozhin had told his troops in Belarus their new mission would be in Africa, several thousand of them trained the Belarusian army near the Polish border, prompting Warsaw to bolster forces there. There were signs, however, the mercenaries were preparing to pull back to Russia.

Belarusian Hajun, a group monitoring Russian troops in Belarus, said Thursday that satellite images showed more than a third of the tents at a Wagner camp had been dismantled, a sign of a possible exodus. Still, President Alexander Lukashenko insists his country will host about 10,000 troops.

That draws strong objections from the Belarusian opposition, which demands their withdrawal.

“Prigozhin’s death should put an end to Wagner’s presence in Belarus, which will reduce the threat for our country and its neighbors,” exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told AP.

A suspected hypersonic missile launched by North Korea exploded in flight on Wednesday, South Korea's military said, a development that comes as North Korea is protesting the regional deployment of a US aircraft carrier for a trilateral military drill with South Korea and Japan.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that North Korea launched a ballistic missile from its capital region around 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday. It said the missile was fired toward the North’s eastern waters, but the launch ended in failure.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff later told South Korean journalists that the missile blew up as it flew over the waters of the North's eastern coastal Wonsan city. It said the fragments of the missile were scattered in the waters, up to 250 kilometers (155 miles) away from the launch site. No damages were immediately reported.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff suspected the weapon is a solid-fueled hypersonic missile. It said Wednesday's launch spewed larger amounts of smoke than normal launches because of a possible engine fault. It said the test was probably aimed to improve the capacity of a hypersonic weapons system.

The contents of the background briefing was shared with foreign media.

The US Indo-Pacific Command said it condemns the North's launch though it didn't pose an immediate threat to the US territory or its allies. It said the US commitments to the defense of South Korea and Japan “remain ironclad.”

Japan’s Defense Ministry said earlier Wednesday that it also detected a suspected ballistic missile launch by North Korea.

Since 2021, North Korea has performed a series of hypersonic missile tests in an apparent bid to penetrate its rivals' missile defense shields. But foreign experts question if North Korean hypersonic vehicles have proved their desired speed and maneuverability during test-flights.

In recent years, North Korea has also been pushing to develop more weapons with solid propellants, Such propellants make launches harder to detect than liquid-propellant missiles, which must be fueled before liftoff.

The North’s reported launch also came as the rival Koreas are engaged in Cold War-style, psychological campaigns such as balloon flying and loudspeaker broadcasts in past weeks.

South Korea said Tuesday night that North Korea floated huge balloons carrying trash across the border for a second consecutive day. South Korean media reported Wednesday that about 100 North Korean balloons with bags of waste papers eventually fell on South Korean territory.

North Korea has conducted a series of trash-carrying balloon launches toward South Korea since late May in what it calls a tit-for-tat response to South Korean activists flying political leaflets via their own balloons. On June 9, South Korea briefly restarted propaganda broadcasts from its border loudspeakers for the first time in years in response. South Korea's military said Monday said it was ready to turn on its loudspeakers again.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived in South Korea on Saturday and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol boarded the carrier on Tuesday — the first sitting South Korean president to board a US aircraft carrier since 1994.

Yoon told American and South Korean troops on the carrier that their countries’ alliance is the world’s greatest and can defeat any enemy. He said the US carrier is to leave Wednesday for the South Korea-US-Japan drill, dubbed “Freedom Edge.” The training is aimed at sharpening the countries’ combined response in various areas of operation, including air, sea and cyberspace.

North Korea’s vice defense minister, Kim Kang Il, on Monday called the US aircraft carrier’s deployment “reckless” and “dangerous.” North Korea has previously called major US-South Korean drills invasion rehearsals and reacted with missile tests.

Seoul officials said the upcoming South Korea-US-Japan training is meant to strengthen the three countries' response capabilities against North Korea's evolving nuclear threats at a time when the North is advancing its military partnerships with Russia.

During a summit in Pyongyang last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a deal requiring each country to provide aid if attacked and vowed to boost other cooperation. Observers say the accord represents the strongest connection between the two countries since the end of the Cold War.

The United States and its partners believe North Korea has been providing Russia with much-needed conventional arms for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance.

North Korea’s reported missile launch is its first weapons demonstrations since Kim Jong Un on May 30 supervised the firing of nuclear-capable multiple rocket launchers to simulate a preemptive attack on South Korea. The drill came days after North Korea’s attempt to put its second spy satellite into orbit ended in failure, with its rocket carrying that satellite exploding in mid-air soon after liftoff.

Since 2022, North Korea has sharply increased the pace of weapons tests to increase its nuclear attack capabilities to cope with what it calls a deepening US military threat. Foreign experts say North Korea eventually aims to use its larger nuclear arsenal to wrest greater concessions from the US when diplomacy resumes.

Russia's Wagner Mercenaries Face Uncertainty after the Presumed Death of Its Leader in a Plane Crash