Security contracts and resource exploitation rights in conflict hotspots, especially in Africa, are said to help Wagner earn hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Wagner private military organization at its peak in late 2022 had at times employed more than 50,000 fighters to take part in Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, focusing on the Bakhmut front in the Donbass region. This force possesses a variety of artillery, military vehicles, armored vehicles, attack helicopters and tanks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a speech on June 27 that since May 2022, the government has spent more than $1 billion on Wagner's salary and incentives.
He also revealed that the Concord company owned by Wagner tycoon Yevgeny Prigozhin receives 80 billion rubles ($940 million) from the state each year to supply food to the Russian army.
Wagner soldiers withdraw from the city of Rostov-on-Don, Rostov province, on the night of June 24. Photo: AFP
In addition to the Russian government money, observers say Wagner, founded in 2014, has a huge money machine from foreign operations, such as oil, gas, minerals, gold and diamonds in Africa and the Middle East. Resource exploitation rights are a common way for parties to pay Wagner in exchange for arms, security and training support. Prigozhin’s total assets were once estimated at $1 billion.
Precious stones and metals
Wagner has significantly expanded its operations in Africa in recent years, especially in countries that are conflict hotspots or have complex security situations such as Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Libya.
In 2022, the US said Wagner mined resources in CAR, Mali, Sudan and several African countries. In a US congressional hearing earlier this year, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said Wagner's gold mining operations in CAR and Mali "directly financed the group's operations in Ukraine".
Wagner began controlling a gold mine in CAR in 2020. Also that year, the CAR Mines Ministry canceled a contract with the Canadian company Ndassima and awarded a 25-year mining concession to Midas Resources, a company registered in Madagascar and believed to be owned by Prigozhin.
The US government imposed sanctions on Sudanese gold mining company Moroe Invest in 2020 after determining that the company was actually owned by Prigozhin. In 2021, Moroe Invest reported revenue of $2.6 million.
Last year, Sudanese officials inspected a plane bound for Russia from the capital Khartoum and found gold in boxes marked as containing biscuits.
Forest exploitation
All Eyes on Wagner, an open-source investigative initiative on Wagner launched by the French-based OpenFacto organization and hosted in the United States, discovered in 2022 that Wagner had been granted 30-year logging rights in the Congo Basin, one of the world's largest untouched rainforests.
In February 2021, CAR handed over the management of a forest near the city of Boda to the Bois Rouge company, based in St. Petersburg and indirectly linked to Prigozhin. At the same time, CAR government forces, in cooperation with Wagner mercenaries, launched an operation to clear the area of rebels. Prigozhin’s organization has since quietly taken control of all forest exploitation activities in Boda.
Investigators estimate that if the Congo Basin were exploited to about 30% of its area, Wagner could potentially earn about $890 million at market prices.
"Despite revised figures and higher-than-estimated input costs, the wood export industry still brought huge profits to Wagner," investigators assessed.
Wagner mercenaries in northern Mali. Photo: AP .
Oil
In 2018, the US government put the Russian-based company EvroPolis on the sanctions list, accusing the company of being a front for tycoon Prigozhin.
EvroPolis won a contract to exploit oil and gas in Syria, but US intelligence believes the contract is actually a way for President Bashar al-Assad's government to pay Wagner for helping to retake control of many oil fields from the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) years ago.
EvroPolis’ accounting records show that in 2017, the company generated around $162 million in revenue from the al-Shaer gas plant and three other oil and gas facilities in Homs province. In 2020, the company generated $134 million in revenue, with a net profit of $90 million.
Mercury, an oil company in Syria that was placed on the European Union's sanctions list in 2021 for suspected links to Wagner, declared $67 million in revenue between 2018 and 2020.
In Libya, 2,000 Wagner members provide security support to General Khalifa Haftar, who controls much of the country's east.
In July 2020, Libya's National Oil Corporation announced that Wagner controlled production at Sharara, the country's largest oil field, with a capacity of 300,000 barrels per day. The corporation later said Wagner was also deployed at other facilities including the Ras Lanuf petrochemical complex, the Zillah oil field, the Es Sider port and the Zuetina port,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told RT on June 26 that Wagner forces may continue to work with clients in Mali and CAR as military trainers.
He noted that defense cooperation between African countries and Russia exists separately from their contracts with Wagner. The Russian foreign minister reiterated that the Wagner rebellion over the weekend would not affect the “strategic relationship” between Russia and the countries that employ Wagner.
Thanh Danh (According to TRT World, RT, Forbes, Financial Times )
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