The Wagner mercenary group has slowly expanded its footprint in Africa while its chief has openly offered support for Niger’s coup leaders. Will Vladimir Putin be happy about this?
with Belarus, a pro-Russian state, located between Poland and Lithuania, the two NATO states, aiming to increase pressure on the Western bloc.Prior to the Ukraine war, Wagner was active in various conflicts from Syria to Mali, but the Russian state did not officially associate its military operations with the mercenary group until the meat-grinding Bakhmut battle in eastern Ukraine last year, says Esref Yalinkilicli, a Eurasia expert.
The political analyst believes that Prigozhin’s outspokenness came in the wartime when both the mercenary group’s powerbase grew and Moscow passed laws banning any criticism toward the Russian army’s conduct in Ukraine. This analysis alongside Wagner’s global expansion might explain why Putin continues to tolerate Prigozhin’s tirades against his top officers in the defence ministry and the military, he adds.But Putin’s “gentle treatment” of Prigozhin might not last for long in the face of increasing tensions between Kiev and Moscow, which sees the fight as
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