Gun-toting warlord Prigozhin vows to ‘make Russia even greater on all continents’ as Wagner chief appears in Africa for first recruitment video since his failed coup against Putin
- Video shows man who appears to be Wagner boss Prigozhin toting assault rifle
Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin published his first recruitment video for the Wagner Group since organizing a short-lived mutiny against defense officials in Russia yesterday, according to information on Russian social media channels.
Prigozhin moved into the global spotlight in June with a dramatic, short-lived rebellion that posed the most serious threat to President Vladimir Putin of the Russian leader’s 23-year rule.
The Wagner founder benefited from Putin’s powerful patronage, including while he built a private army that fought for Russian interests abroad and participated in some of the deadliest battles of the war in Ukraine.
In the video, a person who appears to be the 62-year-old mercenary leader says the Wagner Group is conducting reconnaissance and search activities, and ‘making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free.
‘We are hiring real strongmen and continuing to fulfill the tasks which were set and which we promised to handle.’
The worrying message comes just a month after Prigozhin hailed Niger’s military coup as good news and offered his fighters’ services to bring order.
In the video, a person who appears to be the 62-year-old mercenary leader says the Wagner Group is conducting reconnaissance and search activities
Yevgeny Prigozhin looks on from a car as he leaves the headquarters of the Russian southern military district in the city of Rostov-on-Don following his short-lived mutiny in June
The speaker in the video – which was posted on Telegram messaging app channels which are believed to be affiliated with Prigozhin – can be seen toting an assault rifle and wearing military fatigues.
Pickup trucks and other people dressed in fatigues are in the background.
The Associated Press was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the video or where and when it was created.
READ MORE: Prigozhin praises Niger’s military takeover and even pitches Wagner’s services as he resurfaces in Russia
Russian social media channels linked to the mercenary leader said Prigozhin was recruiting fighters to work in Africa and also inviting investors from Russia to put money in the Central African Republic through Russian House, a cultural center in the African nation’s capital.
The Central African Republic is one of the countries where Wagner’s soldiers-for-hire have been active and accused of committing human rights abuses.
In the video posted Monday, the person who appears to be Prigozhin says Wagner is, ‘giving ISIS, al-Qaida and other gangsters hell’ in temperatures as high as 50 degrees Celsius.
The Kremlin has used the Wagner Group since 2014 as a tool expand Russia’s presence in the Middle East and Africa.
The Wagner group has had an extensive operational scope in numerous African countries including the CAR, Libya, Mali, Sudan, Mozambique and Burkina Faso.
Prigozhin spent months criticizing Russia’s military performance in Ukraine before he called for an armed uprising on June 23 to oust the defense minister and headed from Ukraine toward Moscow with his mercenaries.
Under a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin agreed to end his rebellion in exchange for amnesty for him and his fighters and permission to relocate to Belarus.
Before moving to Belarus, Wagner handed over its weapons to the Russian military – part of efforts by Russian authorities to defuse the threat posed by the mercenaries.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin (pictured) made a surprise appearance at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, just weeks after his group of mercenaries aborted rebellion against the Russian defence ministry
Putin branded Prigozhin a traitor as the revolt unfolded and vowed harsh punishment, but the criminal case against the mercenary chief on rebellion charges was later dropped.
Unusually, the Kremlin said Putin had a three-hour meeting with Prigozhin and Wagner Group commanders days after the rebellion.
A video in July apparently showed Prigozhin in Belarus but he was photographed after that on the sidelines of a Russia-Africa summit in the Russian city of St. Petersburg. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Last month Prigozhin hailed Niger’s military coup as good news and offered his fighters’ services to bring order.
In a voice message on Telegram app channels associated with Wagner, Prigozhin did not claim involvement in the coup.
However, he described it as a moment of long overdue liberation from Western colonisers and made what looked like a pitch for his fighters to help keep order, suggesting he has plans to expand Wagner’s influence in the region.
‘What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonisers,’ the voice message posted to Telegram on Thursday – understood to be recorded by Prigozhin – said.
‘With colonisers who are trying to foist their rules of life on them and their conditions and keep them in the state that Africa was in hundreds of years ago.’
The speaker had the same distinctive intonation and turn of phrase in Russian as the Wagner boss although it was impossible to confirm with certainty that it was him.
‘Today this is effectively gaining their independence. The rest will without doubt depend on the citizens of Niger and how effective governance will be, but the main thing is this: they have got rid of the colonisers,’ the message said.
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