Wagner’s customers will have to adjust to new leadership

The dayCARTJE SUIS WAGNERCARCAR after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death Fidèle Gouandjika, an adviser to Faustin-Archange Touadéra, president of the Central African Republic (), eschewed formal attire. He wore green trousers, military boots, a gun belt and a -shirt reading . “Prigozhin is a hero for us…We won’t forget him,” explained Mr Gouandjika. Yet he argued that ties between Russia and the , the country where the Wagner Group is most ensconced, would endure. “Russia has done a lot for the and will continue to do so.”Over the past six years Wagner has brutally exemplified one half of Russia’s dual approach to Africa. The foreign-policy bureaucracy makes a show of having an Africa policy akin to that of China and Western powers. It hosts glitzy summits. Diplomats like Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, travel the continent signing trade agreements. But in parallel Wagner’s shadow operation blends 19th-century colonial enterprise with 21st-century high-tech gangsterism. Wagner has been the most notorious example of this cheap and somewhat deniable approach to the continent.