‘Exiled’ Wagner chief Prigozhin has praised the recent military coup in Niger (Picture: Shutterstock)
Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has hailed Niger’s recent military coup as good news and offered his fighters’ services to bring order to the region.
A voice message thought to have been left by Prigozhin on Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels denied involvement in the coup, but described it as a moment of long overdue liberation from Western colonisers.
‘What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonisers. With colonisers who are trying to foist their rules of life on them and their conditions and keep them in the state that Africa was in hundreds of years ago,” said the message, posted on Thursday evening.
‘Today this is effectively gaining their independence. The rest will without doubt depend on the citizens of Niger and how effective governance will be, but the main thing is this: they have got rid of the colonisers,’ he added.
Prigozhin met with represetitives from several African nations during this weeks’ Russis-Africa summit (Picture: Telegram)
The Wagner chief remains active despite leading a failed coup against Vladimir Putin last month, and is now thought to be running his operation in exile in Belarus.
He appears to still maintain some official ties to the Kremlin though, and was spotted shaking hands with a representative from the Central African Republic (CAR) during this week’s Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg.
Coup leaders in Niger declared General Abdourahamane Tiani as the new head of state on Friday, days after claiming to have ousted President Mohamed Bazoum in the seventh military takeover in West and Central Africa in less than three years.
The country, which is one of the poorest in the world but which also holds some of its biggest uranium deposits, declared full independence from former colonial ruler France in 1960.
Prigozhin’s voice message is the latest sign that the Wagner group remains active in Africa, where they still have security contracts in some countries including Mali, Libya, Sudan and the CAR.
Wagner’s role in Africa remains a source of concern for Western governments, including France and the United States. Washington has accused the group of committing atrocities and imposed sanctions on it, although Prigozhin has insisted the group works lawfully.
In his voice message, Prigozhin boasted of Wagner’s alleged efficiency in helping African nations stabilise and develop, and in a video released earlier this month was heard telling his men in Belarus they should gather their strength for a ‘new journey to Africa’.
The Wagner Group maintains a presence in a number of African nations such as Libya, Mali and Sudan(Picture: AP)
During comments made to Cameroon-based Afrique Media broadcast on Friday evening, Prigozhin lauded the way the Africa summit had gone, praising Putin for forging what he called one-on-one working relationships with African leaders based on trust.
‘Russia today offers both…economic relations and security exports, without which Africa today cannot exist,’ he said, according to a transcript posted on Wagner Telegram channels.
‘The forum went well and we should see the results of it in the near future,’ he added, naming Mali, CAR and Niger as countries becoming “more and more independent’.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said on Thursday that constitutional order in Niger should be restored.
Analysts said the Prigozhin appearances indicated that Wagner would continue to play a role in furthering the Kremlin’s foreign policy agenda in Africa and were designed to send a signal of continuity to African partners after the tumult of the failed mercenary mutiny inside Russia.
‘Yes, it’s wild that Prigozhin is back in Russia, and apparently has been several times,’ Catrina Doxsee, an expert at the U.S. CSIS think tank, said on messaging platform X.
‘But it’s also in line with both Wagner’s and Russia’s goals to project normalcy and business as usual.’
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The ‘exiled’ mercenary leader met with several African politicians during this weeks’ Russia-Africa summit.
