Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Mercenary Armies

 
24-5-25 Blackwater Portrait of an American PMC - Warographics > .23-3-27 Wagner in Ukraine: Power Struggle on Ruscian Front - VisPol > .23-2-20 Peter Zeihan - Prigozhin's Wagner Group: Ruscia's Flunkies > .
23-2-15 Ruscia’s private military force [Prigozhin's Wagner Thugs] - Vox > .23-1-20 Wagner mercenary group = ‘transnational criminal organization’ > .
22-12-29 Time bomb ticking | Private military company ‘Wagner’ (subs) - MK > .22-11-7 Ukraine: Inside Putin's relationship with the Wagner Group - Forces > .21-12-16 Russia: An International Hub for Private Armies? - VisPol > .
21-10-31 Privatisation of Warfare: Russian PMC Operations in Africa - Red Line > .
21-9-19 Mali-Russian Wagner Deal Close - ARgs > .mīlitēs, sīcāriī - pro libertate >> .
RuM Lot - αλλο >> .


This week the European Union imposed sanctions on the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organisation accused of committing human rights abuses in the Central African Republic and elsewhere. 

Wagner gained prominence in 2014, when it was fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since then, the group has become active in the Middle East, as well as in central and southern Africa. Wagner Group is believed to be funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a rich businessman with links to President Vladimir Putin. [In keeping with Russia's policy of lying] Prigozhin has always denied any connection with Wagner. The Russian government also denies any state involvement with the group while also maintaining it does not legally exist because private military contractors are illegal in Russia.

The Wagner Group which has been involved in various actions as a private military contractor. On 7 February 2018, Wagner attacked US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria in an attempt to take an oil field. Wagner and their allies suffered dozens of casualties when the US responded with airpower.

The Washington Post reported Prigozhin was in close contact with Russian and Syrian military officials before the February 7 action. The connections between Prigozhin and Wagner have been the subject of press coverage in Russia and the United States. Wagner is led by Dmitry Utkin, who was once head of security for Prigozhin. A person by the name of Dmitry Utkin was also listed as Director General of Prigozhin's Concord Management. Since 2011, Prigozhin's mother Violetta Prigozhina has been the owner of Concord. [Lying] Concord and Prigozhin denied any connection to Wagner, however in November 2016 the company confirmed to Russian media that the same Dmitry Utkin leading the Wagner Group was now in charge of Prigozhin's food businesses. Wagner has also been reported to be fighting in eastern Ukraine with pro-Russia forces.

On 30 July 2018, three Russian journalists working for a news organization often critical of the Russian government were murdered in the Central African Republic, where they had been attempting to investigate the activities of the Wagner Group in that country. The Russian government had begun a collaboration with the president of the Central African Republic in October 2017. In its response to the killings, Russia's foreign ministry stressed that the dead journalists had been traveling without official accreditation.

Wagner is believed to have started working in the CAR in 2017, after the UN Security Council approved a Russian training mission there and lifted the arms embargo imposed in 2013. Wagner operatives, as well as government forces, have raped and robbed unarmed civilians in the country's rural areas, the UN and French say. In a report in August about human rights abuses in the CAR, the UN documented more than 500 incidents in the year from July 2020. Among those were extrajudicial killings, torture and sexual violence.

In October 2017, President Touadéra travelled to Russia to sign a number of security agreements with the Russian government. These included a request for military support, in exchange for access to the CAR's significant deposits of diamonds, gold and uranium.

The UN had only agreed to the deployment of 175 Russian trainers for the local military. The EU has said that it will no longer train CAR government soldiers because of their links to Wagner. In Africa, Wagner Group fighters are also involved in Libya, Sudan and Mozambique and look likely to play a role in Mali.

PMC; Soldiers of Fortune; 


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