The Russian mercenary group has been accused of plundering Sudan’s gold resources to bankroll operations in Ukraine. After battles have broken out in Sudan between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), questions have arisen over the involvement of the Wagner Group, a powerful Russian mercenary organisation that has been active in Sudan for years.
Here is
what you need to know about the group and its involvement in the African
country:
What is
the Wagner Group?
The group
first came to widespread attention in 2014 when Wagner mercenaries are thought
to have been involved in the Russian annexation of Crimea and fighting in
eastern Ukraine.
They are
also believed to have been involved in the Syrian war, supporting Russian armed
forces, which intervened on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in 2015.
The
Wagner Group is headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former inmate who once catered
at the Kremlin, earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef”. His fortune grew and
so did his private army. It soon appeared in African countries like Libya,
where it fought in the civil war in support of a renegade general, Khalifa
Haftar.
It has
also had a presence in Mali, the Central African Republic and Sudan as Russia
looks to ensure a supply of resources, such as oil and gold, from Africa.
The
Wagner Group has played a very public role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and
is suspected of raising funds for itself and Russia during its operations
overseas.
How
active is Wagner in Sudan?
The
Wagner Group began its deployments in Sudan during the rule of former President
Omar al-Bashir, who was forced from power in 2019 during large-scale protests.
Fearing
that his rule was shaky, al-Bashir travelled to Russia in 2017 to meet with
President Vladimir Putin and pitch Sudan to him as Russia’s “gateway to Africa”
in return for Russian support. A short time later, Meroe Gold, a new mining
company owned by the Russian company M Invest, began bringing Russian experts
into Sudan, Africa’s third-largest producer of gold.
In 2020,
the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned M Invest and Meroe
Gold, saying that its investigations had revealed that M Invest was a cover for
the Wagner Group.
The
Wagner Group was “primarily aimed at guarding mineral resources, particularly
gold mining resources, and acting as a support force for the Bashir government
in terms of protecting it from international opposition”, Samuel Ramadi, author
of the book Russia in Africa, told Al Jazeera.
During
the 2019 protests against al-Bashir, Ramadi said, the Wagner Group went from
being a “guardianship army to be[ing] an actual direct player in trying to
repress demonstrations”.
After
al-Bashir was removed from power, Ramadi said, Prigozhin tried to align himself
with army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. However, the relationship deteriorated
after the 2019 Khartoum massacre when Sudanese security services violently
dispersed a sit-in, pushing the Wagner Group back into a “guardianship” role
protecting its mining interests.
A CNN
report from July citing official Sudanese sources and flight data said a
military plane smuggling gold flew at least 16 flights from Sudan to Latakia, a
Syrian port city where Russia has a military base, to help fund the Russian
invasion of Ukraine.
The
European Union sanctioned Meroe Gold following the report. “Through its
affiliation with the Sudanese army, the Wagner Group has secured the right to
mine Sudanese gold and export it to Russia,” the European Council said in a
statement.
Russia’s
interests in Sudan do not stop at gold. Russia is set to sign an agreement with
Sudan to build a military base in Port Sudan on the Red Sea. In exchange,
Russia will send weapons and military equipment to Sudan.
Wagner
and the RSF
Wagner
has recently formed a relationship with the RSF and its commander, General
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Ramadi said it is “primarily aimed at creating a smuggling
route for the gold from Sudan to Dubai and then to Russia so that they can fund
Wagner Group operations inside Ukraine”.
In early
2022, a day after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dagalo
flew to Moscow, ushering in a new phase in the RSF’s relationship with the
Wagner Group.
Is
Wagner involved in the fighting in Sudan?
It is
not known if the Wagner Group is engaged in the current fighting in Sudan.
Ashok
Swain, head of the Peace and Conflict Research Department at Uppsala University
in Sweden, said he believes the Wagner Group is “very likely engaged in the
current fight to keep its presence in the country and protect its huge business
interests”.
“The US
has recently pressured Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council to remove this
mercenary group from the country,” Ashok said. “Thus, the Wagner Group has a
considerable interest in who wins the ongoing battle for power in the country.”
“I would
say they are sitting back in a more defensive position,” Ramadi noted, adding
that Russia has joined many other nations, such as China, in calling for
restraint and de-escalation.
“They
are certainly not getting a green light from the Kremlin to play a more active
role, and they are probably staying put for now,” he said.
Russia’s
embassy in Sudan said it was concerned by the violence and called for a
ceasefire and negotiations, the state-owned Russian news agency RIA reported.
“Obviously,
if the conflict spills into civil war and Prigozhin’s mining act is threatened,
we will see a more active military role,” Ramadi said.
He said
the Wagner Group would face a dilemma over whether to redirect troops away from
Sudan’s border with the Central African Republic, where Russia controls several
mines.
***SOURCE:
AL JAZEERA
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/17/what-is-the-wagner-groups-role-in-sudan