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UN sanctions monitors alleged in a report in August that Malian troops and their Russian partners were using violence against women and other grave human rights abuses to spread terror.
Wagner and Mali have denied this, as well as accusations that they executed at least 500 people in a village last year.
In Niger, where US, French, German and Italian troops are stationed as part of international efforts to contain the Islamists, a junta that seized power on July 26 has been using anti-French rhetoric in its broadcasts. Mali’s military government has given support to Niger’s coup leaders.
Pro-coup demonstrators in Niamey have waved Russian flags, adding to Western countries’ fears that Niger could follow Mali’s lead and replace their troops with Wagner fighters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a return to constitutional order in Niger, while Prigozhin has welcomed the coup.
Prigozhin’s video appeared on the eve of a BRICS summit in South Africa where efforts by some members to strengthen and possibly expand the bloc as a counterweight to the West are on the agenda.
BRICS summit
Putin took multiple shots at the West on the opening day of an economic summit in South Africa, using a prerecorded speech that was aired on giant screens on Tuesday to rail at what he called “illegitimate sanctions” on his country and threatening to cut off Ukraine’s grain exports permanently.
Putin, the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant related to the war in Ukraine, did not travel to Johannesburg for the summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies. Instead, he plans to participate remotely in the three-day meeting of the bloc that encompasses Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
His 17-minute speech recorded in advance centred on the war in Ukraine and Russia’s relationship with the West even though South African officials had said East-West frictions should not dominate the first in-person BRICS summit since before the COVID-19 pandemic and hoped to guide the conversation away from the deteriorating geopolitical climate.
Russia’s and Wagner’s footprint in Africa has been expanding in recent years.
The future of Wagner and Prigozhin has been unclear since he led a short mutiny against the Russian defence establishment in late June and the Kremlin said he and some of his fighters – who have fought in some of the fiercest battles of the Ukraine war – would leave for Belarus.
Since the mutiny, some Wagner fighters have moved to Belarus and started training the army there. In comments published in late July, Prigozhin also said Wagner was ready to further increase its presence in Africa.
As well as Mali, Wagner is active in Central African Republic and Libya. Western nations say it is also present in Sudan, though it denies this.
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The message from Prigozhin comes as a Russian general who hasn’t been seen in public since the mutiny by Wagner mercenaries has been removed from his post, RBC news reports.
Sergei Surovikin, 56, was relieved of his post as commander of Russia’s aerospace forces but remains in the Defence Ministry, the news website reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation.
He is no longer the deputy commander of military operations in Ukraine, RBC said, citing one person. The Defence Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The general was quizzed by security officials over his links to Prigozhin following the short-lived revolt in June, a person with knowledge of the matter said at the time, as the Kremlin investigated whether elements in the military had knowledge of the uprising.
Prigozhin had repeatedly praised Surovikin’s leadership in Russia’s war in Ukraine, while demanding the ouster of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
Surovikin, a career military officer whose brutal reputation earned him the nickname “General Armageddon,” was last seen in a Defence Ministry video on June 24 urging Prigozhin to end the uprising. The mercenaries came within 200 kilometers of Moscow before Prigozhin agreed to withdraw his army to Belarus.
Putin put Surovikin in charge of Russia’s army in Ukraine in October and he oversaw the retreat by Russian troops from the Ukrainian city of Kherson the following month. Gerasimov replaced the general as overall commander of operations in Ukraine in January.
Putin has stood by Shoigu and Gerasimov since the mutiny. The president met Gerasimov during a visit Saturday to the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, which Prigozhin had taken over at the start of his rebellion.
Reuters, Bloomberg
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