Guns for gold: the Wagner Network exposed
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| Year of first involvement | Country | Nature of involvement | Further information |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Sudan | Sustained involvment |
The network has mainly taken a non-combat role, providing a support force for the Bashir regime and guarding its business interests.[1]The network offered military training to intelligence and special forces and to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).[2] The network maintained closes ties to Sudan’s military after the fall of President Omar al-Bashir in 2019.[3] Despite the network’s denials,[4] it appears to remain active in Sudan, supporting rebel paramilitaries (the RSF) in the ongoing conflict[5] which broke out on 15 April 2023. Wagner’s gold-smuggling operations from Sudan are significant,[6] with one calling them “critical to Russia’s ability to withstand the significant sanctions deployed against it for its illegal invasion in Ukraine”.[7] |
- ↑ Although the Wagner Group temporarily became “an actual direct player in trying to repress the demonstrations” during the 2019 protests against Bashir, expert Samuel Ramani notes that it was pushed back into its ‘guardianship’ role after his overthrow. Russian mercenaries in Sudan: What is the Wagner Group’s role?, Al Jazeera, 17 April 2023
- ↑ According to Sudanese officials and documents shared with the Associated Press. US pressures allies to expel Russia’s Wagner mercenaries from Libya, Sudan, France 24, 3 February 2023
- ↑ Leaked documents published by Le Monde and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in November 2022 shed further light on the close relationship between the Wagner Group and the Sudanese military. OCCRP, ‘Documents Reveal Wagner’s Golden Ties to Sudanese Military Companies’, 2 November 2022 (accessed 16 July 2023)
- ↑ Several media outlets (for example, Russia’s private Wagner Group denies it is operating in Sudan, Reuters, 20 April 2023) reported the group’s statement on its Telegram channel on 19 April 2023: “Due to the large number of inquiries from various foreign media about Sudan, most of which are provocative, we consider it necessary to inform everyone that Wagner staff have not been in Sudan for more than two years.”
- ↑ In February 2023, Sudanese officials anonymously told France24 that the group still has “dozens of operatives in the country” and that at that time the group was still providing training and guardianship services. All Eyes on Wagner, an open-source voluntary initiative tracking the Group’s activities, reported evidence on 20th April that a plane associated with the Wagner Group was used to deliver weapons to the RSF on 17th April 2023, days after the fighting broke out. The initiative reports that the flight came via the Libyan military bases, Al-Khadim, Jufra. US pressures allies to expel Russia’s Wagner mercenaries from Libya, Sudan, France24, 3 February 2023; All Eyes on Wagner, ‘Libya: Wagner Group’s logistics platform’ (accessed 16 July 2023
- ↑ A CNN investigation released in July 2022 showed the sophisticated gold-smuggling network, drawing on “interviews with high-level Sudanese and US officials and troves of documents”. It concluded that at least 16 flights in 2021 involved a military plane to and from Latakia, the Syrian port city that hosts a significant Russian airbase. According to the investigation, “at least seven sources familiar with events accuse Russia of driving the lion’s share of Sudan’s gold smuggling operations – which is where most of Sudan’s gold has ended up in recent years, according to official statistics”. A whistleblower from the Sudanese Central Bank shared data suggesting that 32.7 tons of gold were unaccounted for in 2021, equating to around $1.9 billion of extracted gold. Some insiders told CNN the amount of Sudanese gold being smuggled from the country was higher, at approximately of 90% of the production. This would equal as much as $13.4 billion, although CNN could not verify this number. Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine, CNN, 29 July 2022
- ↑ Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism - Middlebury Institute of International Studies (WGN0023)
