War on the Rocks published on 9 October 2024 a commentary titled "After Prigozhin, the Wagner Group's Enduring Impact" by Jack Margolin.
The current iteration of the Wagner Group continues both military and commercial operations in Mali and the Central African Republic in close coordination with Russian security services. Russia allows the Wagner Group to survive. At the same time, there is no unified Russian plan for Africa.
The Russia Program at George Washington University published in September 2024 a carefully researched study titled "After Prigozhin Does Wagner Group Have a Future?" by Antonio Giustozzi and David Lewis, Royal United Services Institute.
Following the assassination of Yevgeniy Prigozhin, his son Pavel, has been working to establish the Wagner business on more independent footing. Th Russian government has accepted a compromise in the case of Mali and the Central African Republic and included the Wagner Group in its revised contracts. Wagner proved irreplaceable as far as engaging in combat was concerned. These African regimes showed a clear preference for trusting regime security to Wagner.
After some months attempting to figure out how to move on from Wagner, the Russian Ministry of Defense accepted that there was no real alternative to Wagner in Mali and the CAR and that having Wagner take on the most controversial jobs might continue to serve Moscow's interests. Pavel Prigozhin appears to have been exploring options for operating independently of the Ministry of Defense but, in the end, might not need to separate completely from it.
china-africa relations
