Wagner Group, the Kremlin's external tool

When Yevgeny Prigozhin began his career in catering with a hot dog stand in the early 1990s, just out of prison, few imagined that he would end up, among other things, tied to gold and diamond mining in Central African countries. Nor did Dmitry Utkin, a Ukrainian by birth and former spetsnaz of the GRU - the special forces of Russian intelligence - suspect that the nom de guerre by which he was known during his involvement in the Donbas conflict, Wagner, would end up as the name of a key tool in Vladimir Putin's recent foreign policy. The links between Prigozhin and Utkin go back to when the latter worked as security officer for the former, whose restaurant empire moved, with Putin's blessing, from street vending to the food and cleaning concessions of different public institutions, including the Kremlin and the Russian Armed Forces themselves. 

Dmitry was already part of what could be considered the predecessor of the Wagner Group: the Slavonic Corps, operating in Syria at the end of 2013. Already by 2014, and with the internal conflict in Ukraine underway, Dmitry appears in eastern Ukraine, with the soldiers who would begin to form the so-called Wagner Group. One of his tasks here was not only to impose himself onto the Kiev government, but also to ensure that the unified pro-Russian side would be completely loyal to Moscow. During 2015 and 2016, the group participated in joint actions with Russian regular forces in Syria, in what is considered the beginning of the relationship between Wagner and Prigozhin. Not surprisingly, in 2016 Dmitry Utkin received the Medal of Valor from Vladimir himself. The ceremony, for which he was decorated is not exactly known, but one can guess, was also the last one in which he was seen in public. Not much else was known about the person whose battle name for his affinity to the Wehrmacht - it is said that even during his presence at the Donbas he wore a German army helmet - except that in 2017 he was appointed president of the Concord Management and Consulting company, one more in the network of Yevgeny Prigozhin. 
 

Although the Wagner Group is considered one of many private military companies (PMC), its reality is much more peculiar. Unlike one of the best-known companies, such as the US-based Blackwater or other mercenary companies, this group should be considered a quasi-state player in the security environment, rather than a private security company with an exclusively economic interest. It only acts where Russian interests are at stake and always, therefore, in line with the Kremlin's foreign policy lines of action. The quasi-state use of this group has several positive aspects for Moscow: no need for increased budget allocations in the field of defence; providing added value to the regular forces; reducing Russian military casualties abroad; outsourcing, in a certain way, the foreign projection so as not to neglect the country's domestic policy agenda; and promoting the so-called proxy warfare. The possibility of denying Russian intervention and presence in certain conflicts and countries could also be considered an advantage, but the attention that this group and its connections with the Russian government have been attracting, as Kimberly Marten, an academic at Columbia University, has been downplaying this possibility of disassociating the Kremlin from participation in conflicts such as those in Libya, Syria or other contexts such as Mali, Mozambique and the Central African Republic. 

An interesting aspect of Russia's legal relationship with this type of company, and one that makes the Wagner Group even more special, is that the Russian Constitution states that mercenary military activities are unconstitutional, which makes these PMSCs illegal. There are several possibilities as to why this is the case, but the most plausible is to keep the Wagner Group under control in this way, under the threat that any digression with the Kremlin could mean ending up in prison. It also allows Moscow to control the market, always subject to the Russian oligarchy linked to Vladimir Putin. In fact, despite the illegality, the group is known to have carried out joint training with the GRU in the Krasnodar region, very close to the east of Ukraine where the company made itself known.

As for the Wagner Group's presence on the African continent, perhaps the case of the Central African Republic is the one that is yielding the most revenue for Prigozhin and Russia. Partly because it is one of the areas in which they are present that is furthest away from the spotlight, allowing them greater freedom of action. His presence in the Central African country dates back to late 2017, in a political context in which Russia had obtained the approval of the United Nations to break the arms embargo to which the country was subject. With the agreement for weapons donation - mainly light weapons - between Moscow and Bangui, came a series of conditions that Faustin Touadéra's government did not reject. In addition to the arrival of the Russian company in 2018 with the assignment of the custody of the donated Russian arms, the role of the company has been increasing. The arrival of Valery Zakharov to the Central African President's entourage as a security advisor was a key event. The Wagner Group then moved on to the training of Central African special forces, in addition to surveillance in mining areas linked to gold and diamond extraction, from which Prigozhin derives his benefit. To this end, Zakharov reached agreements with the rebel groups that controlled some of these territories, making it easier for them, in the framework of the DDR process that took place in CAR, to join the Central African army in its different ranks. Russia therefore sealed off a new model of influence for developing countries with a very fragile security environment, with which other countries with interests in the continent, such as the US or France, as well as missions such as the European ones (EUTM type), have a disadvantage. Nevertheless, the Central African Republic represents an example of some success, but this is not extrapolated to other locations. The presence in Libya, linked to Marshal Haftar, still depends on him taking full control of the country, something that has been close for a year but has not yet been achieved. In Mali, the international presence is very extensive, so the Russian contribution does not seem to be a determining factor in the degradation that the country is suffering. And in Mozambique, the latest information points to a withdrawal after the defeats in the northern part of the country, where jihadism is beginning to gain strength.

This externalisation of the military presence gives the Kremlin the possibility of exploring the viability of a rapprochement without putting its troops at risk, or proposing deployments like the one it is carrying out in Syria, with a much higher economic cost. It also allows it to have a more short-term vision of foreign projection, linked to early successes and with a capacity to withdraw if the conflict deteriorates, as in Mozambique, just as quickly. This is how Russia's participation in the world market of MCPs is, present, but in its own style.