Coup against Putin fails, but in the real war casualties mount.
A truck transports a tank of Wagner private mercenary group along M-4 highway, which links the capital Moscow with Russia's southern cities, near Voronezh, Russia, on June 24 2023. Picture: REUTERS/Stringer
First things first. A Wagner coup would be a bad thing. With Wagner, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. He is still my enemy, especially in a country with nuclear weapons. Prigozhin was outraged in part because Russian military inefficiency and corruption were hampering his units in Ukraine where his fighters, many recruited from Russian prisons, have displayed great talent for killing.
More apposite is Russia’s 1979 “special military intervention” in Afghanistan, a 10-year misadventure that killed about 14,000 Russian soldiers, 100,000 Afghan troops and 2-million civilians. News — and Russian casualty figures — was suppressed at home even as more troops were fed into the grinder, while the mujahideen enjoyed using their US-supplied Stinger missiles to shoot down Russian aircraft with glee.
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African Countries Face Terror of Wagner GroupThe power struggle between President Vladimir Putin and the Wagner Group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin will likely have huge implications for Africa. Wagner mercenaries are active in several African countries, including Central African Republic and Mali. In the Central African Republic, for example, 1,890 so-called "Russian instructors" are supporting government troops in the ongoing civil war, according to the Russian ambassador. The latest report from The Sentry reveals that "systematic efforts by Russia to undercut democracy in Africa have inhibited democratic development in two dozen African countries." John F. Clark writes for The Conversation that it is easy to understand what African rulers see in the mercenary group. The group's mercenaries can be deployed quickly, and the group brings sophisticated arms with it and can apply force and ruthlessly. Wagner has been accused of atrocities, including mass murder and rape, across Africa and alongside Russian forces in Ukraine. In Libya, up to 1,200 Wagner mercenaries are believed to be fighting on the side of rebel leader Khalifa Hifter. In Mali, the pro-Russian, anti-Western military junta has also brought hundreds of Wagner fighters into the country. There, they have been accused of committing serious human rights violations.
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