Questions still surround the fate of the Wagner group, the mercenary outfit whose founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a private jet crash near Moscow last week. But the Russian government looks poised to wield the muscle and influence in Africa that Prigozhin and his private military company enjoyed for years.
Accounts of Prigozhin’s final days, most of them spent in Africa, suggest his killing may have been part of a brewing fight for regional influence between the Kremlin and Wagner following the mercenary group’s short-lived putsch in June.