Adrian Marr, host:
Russia’s military ambitions are focused on the war with Ukraine. But there’s a less-talked-about front in Vladimir Putin’s military strategy that’s playing out on an entirely different continent: Africa. It’s carried out by a mysterious mercenary force known as the Wagner Group. If the name sounds familiar, you might recall hearing about a year ago that the Wagner Group and its fighters were hired to fight in Ukraine, but then launched a failed rebellion against Putin. You might also remember that the leader of the Wagner Group, a man named Evgeny Prigozhin, died in a mysterious plane crash just a few weeks later. But Prigozhin’s death wasn’t the end of the Wagner Group.
Our next guest, Sean McFate, a national security expert who teaches at the National Defense University, explains why. He calls Wagner the most dangerous private soldier in the world. Thanks for joining us, Sean.
Sean McFate: Good to be back.
MA: So before we get into that, can you remind us what the Wagner Group is and why it’s important?
MCFATE: The Wagner Group is a Russian mercenary organization that was formed during the initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and has been the Kremlin’s favorite covert weapon throughout the Middle East and Africa, and has played a major role in the Ukraine war more recently. But when they marched on Moscow in June 2023, things went awry.
MA: You mentioned earlier that they marched on Moscow. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Like, why did they do that? And how did that change the situation?
MCFATE: The march on Moscow last June was more of a renegotiation than a revolt. I mean, this happens all the time in private wars. When a group of mercenaries and their masters fight over a contract, there’s no court where they can sue. So usually the mercenaries push their masters to renegotiate. And that’s what happened. When Prigozhin was marching on the road to Moscow, he was probably negotiating with Putin or Putin’s representatives to renegotiate. And then at the last minute they landed in neighboring Belarus. And then Putin renegotiated the contract 60 days later and blew up Prigozhin’s plane with all his men. And the situation changed. Basically, Putin took the Wagner Group for himself.
MA: Let me just point out here that you explicitly say that Putin blew up Prigozhin’s plane, so you’re not saying that this was a mysterious plane crash.
MCFATE: Yes. I’m sure Putin blew up the plane. Some people think there was no one on the plane and Prigozhin is sitting on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean with a beard and drinking Mai Tais, but we don’t know. He’s a pipe dream. Basically, think of it like a corporate takeover. When one company buys another, they fire the executives whose plane blew up. They replace some of the middle managers and read the employees new company values. This happened last January. The Russians said, you’re going to work for the Ministry of Defense from now on. We’re going to have you sign a loyalty agreement and we’re going to rebrand you as the Africa Corps. And finally, they just want the Wagner Group to keep doing what they’re doing in Africa. And that’s what they’ve been doing since the renegotiations, the hostile takeover stage.
MA: Hmm. Okay. So under the new management, are they still called the Wagner Group?
MCFATE: No. They changed the name. So now it’s called Afrika Korps. But the idea is that they’re basically a Russian secret force trying to turn the Sahel region of Africa into a brotherhood of military regimes that are going to confront Moscow as a vassal state, not the West. And that’s what the Wagner Group has been doing ever since. Their role in Ukraine, you know, was that what was left was just cannon fodder. They weren’t even mercenaries. They were murderers and rapists who were thrown out of prison. Actually the skilled mercenaries were always in Africa because Prigozhin kept them there to protect his business interests. After he disappeared, they’re still doing the same thing they were doing before, but under new management, which is Putin.
MA: I can’t help but wonder whether what Wagner is doing now, at the behest of President Vladimir Putin, is something the U.S. should be worried about and do something about.
MCFATE: The US missed some opportunities. The US does not consider mercenaries a lethal force, and for us it is not. I mean, mercenaries are not going to take over the US. But the problem with the missed opportunities is that there was ongoing friction between Wagner’s mercenary forces and the Russian forces, which is, frankly, common in history between private and public fighters. And we should have taken advantage of that to make sure that Russia and the broader group would not trust or cooperate with each other, or even fight each other. Then we might have been able to end the Ukraine war in 2023.
But we didn’t do that because we don’t think of mercenaries as part of modern warfare. We think of mercenaries as cheesy Hollywood villains or something ancient. And more importantly, these mercenaries are not a direct threat to the US, but they could be a problem in parts of the world that we care about, such as the Middle East. So we need to keep an eye on these mercenaries. Just because Prigozhin was assassinated doesn’t mean the problem will go away.
MA: We’ve been speaking with Sean McFate, professor of international studies at the National Defense University. Sean, that’s a fascinating and, in some ways, sobering story. Thanks for joining us.
MCFATE: Thank you.
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