Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin

One year after the death of Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his deputy Dmitry Utkin in a plane crash under suspicious circumstances the mercenary group renamed as the Africa Corps is now more tightly controlled to advance Russia's strategic objectives (AC Vol 64 No 19 Kremlin ponders its post-Wagner options)...

After the death of the Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last August and a slow purge of his associates by the Russian military intelligence service the GRU the Kremlin remains heavily embedded in the African country where it has the strongest links (AC Vol 64 No 19 Kremlin ponders its post-Wagner options)...

In 2019 Russia's Wagner military company led by Yevgeny Prigozhin was hired by Nyusi to boost his election campaign...

The same month brought the appearance at least online of the Africa Corps a new military/commercial formation designed to seamlessly merge all the functions of the Wagner Group with the Russian state in the wake of the death last August of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin...

The importance to the Kremlin of the AMTV operation and other disinformation in Africa is shown by the fact that after Wagner CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin's coup attempt against the Russian government failed in June he continued to be seen on AMTV including greeting African leaders at the Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg at the end of July attended by 17 heads of state...

Biya does not have a public relationship with Wagner but its late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin met many African public figures at the St Petersburg summit in July...

The crash of Yevgeny Prigozhin's jet on 25 August was both expected and full of surprises...

Restricting his role to a couple of set piece speeches online Putin was multi-tasking during the summit; purging senior officers from the military and managing an official response to the widely predicted demise of his erstwhile ally Yevgeny Prigozhin on 23 August...

And the immediate beneficiaries would be the jihadist insurgents already gaining ground in the Sahel and Russia's Wagner Group of mercenaries under Yevgeny Prigozhin...

And they are accepting the congratulations of Russia's Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin while mulling his offers of help...

Others believe that Paris has secretly agreed with Washington to divorce Bangui from Wagner – or a version of it that may be rebranded after Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's attempted march on Moscow – at almost any cost...