A prime adviser to the president of the Central African Republic mentioned on Friday that Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner paramilitary group, had visited the nation days earlier than the aircraft he was believed to be touring on crashed in Russia.
“He got here right here to provoke his troops after which went elsewhere in Africa,” mentioned Fidèle Gouandjika, the adviser to President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who lately has welcomed Wagner mercenaries to combat insurgent teams in alternate for mining concessions.
Mr. Prigozhin’s presumed dying may have profound penalties for African shopper states and warlords who, within the span of some years, helped flip a mercenary enterprise into considered one of Russia’s strongest and recognizable property on the continent.
In nations such because the Central African Republic and Mali, Wagner operatives have supplied safety to autocratic leaders looking for to remain in energy, in addition to troopers to assist underequipped nationwide armies combat rebels and extremist teams. In others, together with Libya and Sudan, they’ve equipped warlords with weapons and coaching to mount challenges to fragile governments.
In return, Wagner’s African purchasers equipped it with money, together with gold and diamond mining concessions. And Wagner’s hundreds of operatives and dozens of shell firms have been additionally concerned in different industries, together with timber, beer and vodka, logistics and leisure.
The way forward for this enterprise empire now seems unsure, with its most recognizable determine believed to be useless.
“He was a proficient individual, a proficient businessman. He labored not solely right here in our nation, and bought outcomes, but in addition overseas, particularly in Africa,” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia mentioned on Thursday about Mr. Prigozhin. “There he was engaged with oil, gasoline, treasured metals and stones. Simply yesterday, so far as I perceive, he returned from Africa and met right here with a number of officers.”
The final identified photographs of Mr. Prigozhin, in a video he launched earlier this week, seem to have been shot someplace in Africa. Many analysts recommended it was in Mali, the place round 1,500 Wagner mercenaries have been deployed.
In an indication of the aura the group has cultivated on the continent, Russian flags have appeared at protests in some West and Central African cities lately, together with the brand of the Wagner group and posters of Mr. Prigozhin. Its prominence has grown at the same time as its mercenaries have been accused of widespread human rights abuses together with executions, rape and torture.
Since Mr. Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny two months in the past towards the Russian army management, the Kremlin has tried to guarantee African purchasers that it was in management.
John Lechner, an unbiased researcher writing a guide on the Wagner group, mentioned little would doubtless change within the brief time period for the group’s actions in Africa. For Wagner’s contractors, it could be enterprise as normal so long as they maintain being paid, he mentioned. However he added that with Mr. Prigozhin’s presumed dying, the group “would possibly go on in a a lot much less charismatic means.”
Over time, different personal army firms extra intently affiliated with the Russian authorities may search to recruit Wagner mercenaries, Mr. Lechner and others argued.
“The Wagner group is a device in Putin’s device equipment that he received’t need to quit simply because Prigozhin and the management of the Wagner group are gone,” mentioned Cameron Hudson, a former C.I.A. analyst who’s now an Africa specialist on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Washington.
Nonetheless, Russia could wrestle to interchange its most outstanding determine on the continent, Mr. Hudson mentioned, due to what he known as Mr. Prigozhin’s “star persona, this mythic attraction in lots of components of Africa.”
Mr. Gouandjika, the Central African presidential adviser, known as Mr. Prigozhin a nationwide hero who had saved the nation. He posed carrying a Wagner T-shirt this week in a tribute to the group’s chief and mentioned in a phone interview on Friday that he was grieving — however that the partnership with Russia would proceed.
“There will probably be one other Prigozhin,” he mentioned. “We’re awaiting the following one.”
