Prigojine’s exile in Belarus is definitely exile in name only. In a somewhat surprising announcement, the Russian presidency admitted on July 10 that the boss of the Wagner group had met in Moscow with Putin, only five days after his abortive rebellion. The agreement reached with the Kremlin at the end of his mutiny, which provided for his departure for the former Soviet republic, did not, it seems, put an end to the comings and goings of the boss of Wagner. “He is in Saint Petersburg. Where is he this morning? Maybe gone to Moscow, or elsewhere, but he is not on Belarusian territory”, had already dropped, four days earlier, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
“We see that Prigojine is not currently treated as harshly as former members of the Russian elite who have been ostracized from society in the past, notes Maxime Audinet, researcher at IRSEM, a specialist in Russia. Although a process of dismantling its assets has indeed been launched, other contradictory signals show that it nevertheless retains a certain latitude.” Sign of this strange indulgence, the Moscow Times reported in early July that the Russian authorities had returned to him some 10 billion rubles (about 101 million euros) seized during the various searches of his properties after his June 24 rebellion.
In-house unraveling
“The Russian authorities are used to seizing the assets of oligarchs who have fallen out of favor with the Kremlin, as shown by the example of Mikhail Khodorovski and his oil company Yukos in the 2000s, recounts Raphael Parens, researcher specializing in Eurasia at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. But the diversification of Prigozhin’s empire and the presence of its members in Putin’s circle, the FSB and other security services could make this process more complex.” For the time being, the Russian power has above all undertaken to silence its media strike force. As of June 30, information sites belonging to his Patriot media group, including RIA Fan, were made inaccessible by Roskomnadzor, the Russian telecoms policeman. His famous troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, has also been dissolved according to the Russian media. roundaboutbased in St. Petersburg.
At the same time, Russian state media kicked off a massive smear campaign against him. Accusing him of having “lost the ball over money” in early July, the Russian media cheerfully broadcast images taken during the search of his luxurious villa in Saint Petersburg last week. Among other curiosities discovered on site: wads of banknotes, gold bars, assault rifles and false passports. But also, more unexpectedly, a series of photos showing Wagner’s boss disguised as a Libyan or Sudanese soldier, wearing a wig and a fake beard, or even a photo of severed heads framed on the wall, as well as a a gigantic decorative mace – Wagner’s emblem – bearing the inscription: “In case of important negotiations”.
Beyond this media coverage of his private life, certain key segments of his empire could be threatened in the longer term. This is the case with Concord, his catering company, which allowed him to make a fortune thanks to lucrative contracts signed with the Russian state to feed the army. The group, which earned 80 billion rubles (about 807 million euros) last year, could be the subject of an investigation into its finances, has already warned the Kremlin. “I hope that in the course of this work no one stole anything, or, let’s say, stole less, but we will, of course, investigate all this,” Putin said as early as June 27. Doing without the services of such a company could, however, prove tedious for a Russian government already struggling with the management of logistics flows in Ukraine.
A Problem Called Wagner
Even more thorny for the authorities, the question of the future of Wagner, armed arm of Prigojine and unofficial extension of Russian foreign policy in Syria and in ten African countries. Under the agreement with the head of the Kremlin, his fighters were offered three choices: leave for Belarus with their leader, sign a contract with the Russian army or return to civilian life. “The replacement of Wagner’s activities will be the most difficult task, confirms Raphael Parens. Not only has the group established relations with the regimes of the countries where it is established, but it is not certain that its militiamen and its military or business partners are easily transferable to another organization or to the Russian state.” In the Central African Republic, a veritable laboratory of Wagner on the African continent, the group has taken control of entire sectors of the economy, such as the extraction of diamonds and gold, the traffic in wood or the production of coffee and of alcohol.
So many sectors on which Moscow does not intend to draw a line. On June 30, the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov assured that “the fate of the arrangements between the African countries and the Wagner group depends above all on the decision of the governments of the countries concerned whether or not to pursue this form of cooperation”. But will this be possible without Prigozhin’s men? “The system put in place by Wagner is very entrenched: there have been years of establishment, infiltration of political structures and economic diversification, notes Maxime Audinet. His mercenaries can hardly be replaced overnight by squadrons of the Russian army, who are already occupied in Ukraine and do not have the flexible structure of Wagner.” Anxious to put out the fire, after information having reported the departure of hundreds of mercenaries from the Wagner group from CAR since July 6, the spokesman for the Central African presidency assured, on the 8th, that it was not a question of “not of a definitive departure, but of a rotation”.
“If the Prigojine empire disappeared completely, Russia could quickly lose influence in the world, especially in Africa, underlines Raphael Parens. And no other private military company in Russia has the necessary knowledge or experience to replace him.” Despite the agreement with the Kremlin, active recruitment of mercenaries by Wagner is still ongoing, according to Dossier Center, the investigative media funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. “We expect this to be the case for some time to come: the only question is whether the new recruits will be posted to Africa, the Middle East or Ukraine,” said one of his colleagues. investigators. The integration of mercenaries into the Russian Ministry of Defense could in any case prove to be complex. “Most will refuse to sign and will prefer to go home, predicts Marat Gabidullin, former member of Wagner and author of Me, Marat, ex-commander of the Wagner army (Michel Lafon, 2022). And to conclude: “I don’t think the twilight of Prigozhin has come yet.” To the chagrin of Russian power.