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State capture is a particularly nefarious form of systemic corruption, which has defined certain African countries in recent years. It entails private individuals gaining such a profound influence over senior officials that state institutions prioritise the welfare of those private interests over the public good.
There is a triangular pattern to such arrangements. The external partners and the colluding political actors profit handsomely – while the public foots the bill.
Siegle, Joseph. “How Russia is pursuing state capture in Africa.” Africa at the London School of Economics, March 21, 2022.
In the inverted and upside-down Moscovian underworld inhabited by criminals, mercenaries, and warlords, life’s rich with looted diamonds and gold and other of Africa’s natural resources commandeered by force — well, gentleman’s agreements up top — and worked by slaves. “Working” with impunity, Wagner operations have been associated with disinformation campaigns, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, rapes, and accounts of torture.
Topside, as it were, Russia has been able to leverage Wagner power in weakened states into concessions, commercial contracts, and access to airbases and ports.
Apart from selling arms and natural resources, Russia may not know how to make money in ways above board and transparent, but it knows how to steal all that it wants. In mafia fashion, even the reference “Wagner Group” has submerged into enshadowed networks.
he Wagner Group is one of the most well-known and prolific PMCs in the world. Nevertheless, exact details about the group are difficult to confirm, with its organizational structure remaining deliberately obscure. The Wagner Group does not officially exist, with the name instead applied to an overlapping network of businesses and private military forces that are believed to enjoy the implicit but unrecognized support of the Russian state (Foreign Policy, 6 July 2021).1
In recent years, the Wagner Group has actively engaged in conflicts across multiple countries in Africa and the Middle East, including Syria, Libya, Mozambique, and CAR. Reports also suggest that they have engaged in activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Sudan (Africanews, 22 March 2022), with operations in up to 30 countries across the world (Center for Strategic & International Studies, September 2020).
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). “Wagner Group Operations in Africa: Civilian Targeting Trends in the Central African Republic and Mali.” August 30, 2022.
BackChannels scrapes up the outside story, lol, as it sees the world through Windows–but what a world is now online for gathering in the research of extraordinary journalists and institutions and having at hand a broad and thorough impression of challenges to civility, democracy, law, and peace worldwide. Here with this short patch of reference related to Russia’s hybrid aggression in the cause of immense theft–no ethical, human, or moral cost is too high for plundering states and suborning the dictators who had thought they were in charge–comes a display of transnational crime breathtaking in its depravity and scope.
If only Africans knew what was being done to them with Moscow’s endorsement for Moscow’s pleasure.
Reference: Wagner Group in Africa
Ehl, David. “More than mercenaries: Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa.” DW, February 28, 2023.
Mackinnon, Amy. “Russia’s Wagner Group Doesn’t Actually Exist.” Foreign Policy, July 6, 2021.
Addendum to Reference from May 22, 2023
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