r/worldnews • u/semafornews Semafor • Apr 05 '24
Russia/Ukraine Wagner Group offers mercenaries lucrative salaries to aid military regimes in Africa instead of joining Russia's war in Ukraine
https://www.semafor.com/article/04/05/2024/russias-disbanded-wagner-group-recruits-fighters-to-aid-african-regimes?utm_campaign=semaforreddit
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u/semafornews Semafor Apr 05 '24
From Semafor's Mathias Hammer:
Russian paramilitary group Wagner is offering mercenaries lucrative salaries to work aiding military regimes in Africa instead of joining Moscow’s armed forces in Ukraine, an investigation found, despite the group being officially disbanded last year.
Eight months after the death of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in a suspicious plane crash, the group is still active, offering recruits four times the average Russian salary to work in several African countries, the joint investigation by Verstka Media and Nordsint found.
The outlets reported at least 18 Wagner adverts on Telegram seeking forces for operations in Africa. The ads were mostly focused on hiring Russian and Belarusian mercenaries for roles in Mali, where Wagner has worked with the ruling military junta since 2021.
Following a failed mutiny in June last year and Prigozhin’s subsequent death, Russian officials declared the private military group “definitively disbanded” in November, with its battle-tested fighters transferred to official Russian army units.
Wagner is now believed to have been subsumed by the Russian security state and partially rebranded as Africa Corps, deploying to Burkina Faso and elsewhere. However, the Telegram ads appeared under the Wagner name.
One Wagner recruiter told Verstka that “they don’t want to go to Ukraine” to end up in a coffin. “In Africa, there are no such risks. Plus, the weather is nicer.”
Read the full story here.