Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin’s infamous Wagner Group has left a trail of havoc and violence “quite literally across the continent of Africa” in pursuit of mineral wealth and other “exploitative goals,” according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“Wherever we’ve seen Wagner deploy, countries find themselves weaker, poorer, more insecure, and less independent,” Blinken told reporters on the final day of the U.S.-Africa Leader Summit in Washington. “That’s the common denominator. That’s the common story across the board, which is why it’s so important that we work together with partners in Africa to make them resilient to something like the Wagner Group.”
The extended denunciation of the mercenary organization made for a marked contrast with Blinken’s carefully modulated diplomacy over the week. Most State Department officials have sought to sidestep a direct debate about the influence of Russia or China in Africa, though evidence of the geopolitical rivalries could be found throughout the summit discourse, but Blinken seized the opportunity to list “a long litany of bad things” attributable to Wagner operations in Africa.
“They threaten stability,” he said Thursday evening. “They undermine good governance. They rob countries of mineral wealth. They violate human rights. And we’ve heard that and seen that again and again.”
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Wagner Group forces have proven to be a dangerous component of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a war that has threatened to exacerbate a food crisis in the most impoverished African states and raised the stakes of their ties to the United States and its chief adversaries. China and Russia have encouraged African societies to regard the U.S. as heir to imperial Western powers reviled across Africa, but Ghana’s anxiety about Wagner Group operations in neighboring Burkina Faso turned the tables on Russia.
“I believe a mine in southern Burkina has been allocated to them as a form of payment for their services,” Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said during a Wednesday meeting with Blinken. “Apart from not accepting the idea of great powers once again making Africa their theater of operation, we have a particular position that you know about over the Ukraine war, where we have been very, very vocal and upfront about condemning the invasion by Russia. And therefore, there now to have this group in our borders is a matter of some considerable disquiet and concern for us.”
Prigozhin has a long-standing reputation as an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, but for years his mercenary force posed as an independent actor from the Kremlin. That pretense has fallen away during the war in Ukraine, as the organization emerged as a key front-line force for the invasion, and Prigozhin acknowledged his involvement in Russia’s interference in the U.S. elections.
“We have interfered, we are interfering, and we will continue to interfere,” Prigozhin admitted in November. “Carefully, accurately, surgically, and in our own way, as we know how to do.”
Blinken made no immediate public response to the Ghanaian president’s misgiving that the Wagner Group could retaliate against his country’s opposition to the war in Ukraine. But he amplified Akufo-Addo’s warning to brand them as an entrepreneurial aggressor throughout the continent.
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“We’ve heard repeated concerns that Wagner and groups that are linked to it manufacture or exploit insecurity,” he said. “And the bottom line is this: What I heard in conversations this week, as I’ve heard in the past, is our partners in Africa tell us that they do not want their resources exploited. They don’t want the human rights of their people abused. They don’t want their governance undermined. And ultimately, as a result, they really don’t want Wagner.”
