The late Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner mercenary drive has been accused of plotting assaults in opposition to Western infrastructure in Africa, together with U.S. oil firm Chevron's pipelines, based on the leaked correspondence of Prigozhin's Harmony Group obtained by Ukraine's 24 Channel.
One other accusation is that Wagner mercenaries have allegedly cooperated with terrorists, together with Al Qaeda, in Africa.
The Kyiv Unbiased couldn’t independently confirm the data.
The hacked correspondence accommodates quite a few emails written by kinfolk of Wagner mercenaries killed in Ukraine, in addition to moms and dads asking Prigozhin to rent their sons.
The obtained emails make clear a scandal involving meals poisoning allegedly brought on by the Harmony Group.
The group didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Prigozhin, as soon as a trusted confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, rose to infamy because the mastermind behind Wagner, Russia's most infamous mercenary drive. Wagner fighters have left their mark throughout Africa, Syria, and Ukraine — most notably within the grinding battles within the nation's Donetsk Oblast, the place they spearheaded Russia's offensive from 2022 to 2023.
Nevertheless, in June 2023, Prigozhin fell out with the Kremlin and led an armed rebel, solely to abruptly name it off after negotiations with Putin. Two months later, in August 2023, Prigozhin was killed in a airplane crash, an incident that many impartial observers have pinned on Putin because the possible orchestrator.
The Kyiv IndependentOleg Sukhov
Wagner's actions in Africa
In March 2021, Igor Smirnov wrote an electronic mail to Prigozhin's Harmony Group that retired Russian officers had been anticipated to participate in assaults on international infrastructure services in West Africa.
Smirnov, allegedly a former Russian intelligence officer who allegedly labored for oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was trying to border or warn the group.
He claimed that "a bunch of Russians is contacting many armed teams in West Africa, together with Ansaru, an Al Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria."
"In alternate for assaults on Western oil firms, jihadists are serving to to arm militants within the Niger Delta underneath a direct settlement with the Russians," Smirnov mentioned. "After the primary assaults on Western firms, al Qaeda within the Islamic Maghreb will take duty for that."
He additionally claimed that he had video and audio recordings implicating a Wagner mercenary within the negotiations concerning the assaults.
"All of this may quickly come crashing down in your firm, which destabilizes the scenario in West Africa, cooperates with terrorists, and is waging an oblique conflict in opposition to the West," Smirnov added.
In one other electronic mail, Smirnov additionally accused Wagner Group of extorting cash from U.S. oil firm Chevron in alternate for the safety of the corporate's pipelines in Nigeria. He claimed that the extortion had been "documented by Khodorkovsky."
He additionally hooked up a video that allegedly exhibits an affiliate of Wagner Group's chief of workers, Andrei Troshev, assembly with Nigerian warlord Asari Dokubo.
This isn’t the primary time Wagner mercenaries stand accused of unlawful actions in Africa.
Journalist Orkhan Dzhemal, movie director Alexander Rastorguyev, and cameraman Kirill Radchenko had been killed within the Central African Republic in 2018 whereas investigating the exercise of Wagner mercenaries there.
In 2019, Khodorkovsky's File Middle printed an investigation based on which Wagner Group may have been behind the homicide.
Chevron and Khodorkovsky's press workplace didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The Kyiv IndependentAlexander Khrebet
Killed Wagner fighters
The emails obtained by the 24 Channel additionally reveal the implications of Wagner Group's participation in Russia's offensives in Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, together with the Battle of Bakhmut, in 2022 and 2023.
Wagner Group recruited 1000’s of convicts who had been pardoned by Putin in alternate for army service.
The convicts routinely took half in human wave assaults in Bakhmut and different areas, struggling disproportionately excessive casualties within the grinding offensives.
Ranging from January 2023, many individuals despatched emails to Wagner asking the corporate about their killed kinfolk and compensation for his or her deaths.
In January 2023, Ekaterina Merzlyak wrote {that a} 25-year-old Wagner fighter had been killed in December 2022 and later buried within the village of Krasnoselkup within the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District.
"Fellow villagers are outraged that not a single consultant of the native authorities confirmed due respect to the dad and mom of our hero," she mentioned. "They didn’t help with the group of the funeral or with transportation. There was full silence as if nothing had occurred."
Merzlyak additionally wrote that his "father needed to transport the coffin himself with a trailer over a bumpy winter highway for 5 hours, although our administration finds it straightforward to herald some singer by helicopter for Metropolis Day celebrations."
The correspondence additionally accommodates emails written by jail inmates' moms asking Wagner to recruit their sons.
"Pricey Yevgeny Viktorovich (Prigozhin), I’m asking on your assist! Please assist my son redeem himself," one in every of them wrote to Prigozhin in November 2022. "My son went to Moscow to earn a residing. Sadly, he acquired into bother there and ended up in pretrial detention."
She wrote Prigozizhin "to assist my son get to the entrance," saying that "he’s very keen on your assist!"
A person named Andrei Lapshin wrote in April 2023 that his 15-year previous son, a cadet at a army college, is "deeply engaged within the patriotic agenda, sees his future within the ranks of Russian legislation enforcement businesses and is an avid fan of Wagner Group."
"Subsequently, I want to ask on your assist in probably arranging a job for him in the course of the summer season break — in order that he doesn't waste his time working at some chain café or as a courier, however somewhat will get concerned in an actual, critical, crucial, and helpful activity for our Motherland," Lapshin added.
Another emails had been extra vital of Wagner Group's actions.
A lady named Dinara Satanova wrote in July 2023 that the fingers of Wagner Group's management had been "stained with the blood of our kids, husbands, and brothers."
"We’re conscious of the information of killings, abuse, denial of medical help, and hunger, regardless of all efforts to hide them," she mentioned.
Satanova mentioned that Wagner's drive to recruit convicts was "like slave commerce from which the corporate made thousands and thousands."
"You might have destroyed and ruined our households, our kids," she mentioned. "On what grounds had been kids underneath the age of twenty-two recruited? Moms weren’t knowledgeable, and no consent was given."
The Kyiv IndependentFrancis Farrell
Meals poisoning scandal
Other than army actions, the correspondence covers Harmony Group's meals procurement schemes.
In 2019, Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny's workforce uncovered Harmony Group's low-quality meals deliveries to varsities and kindergartens in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which resulted within the poisoning of a whole lot of kids.
Amid the scandal, many dad and mom despatched emails to Harmony Group and demanded compensation.
In response to the accusations, in August 2019, Prigozhin accused Navalny and his affiliate Lyubov Sobol of orchestrating the poisoning, based on the leaked correspondence.
He claimed that Navalny and Sobol "extorted 300 million rubles ($3 million) to keep away from stirring up a scandal relating to the youngsters."
"We’ve made vital progress on this investigation and don’t rule out the likelihood that the poisoning incident was the results of a blatant act of sabotage, as quite a few information recommend," Prigozhin mentioned. "As you understand, Sobol is an individual prepared to commit any crime to grow to be a politician… We’ve witnesses who verify that Sobol was instantly concerned within the kids's sickness."
He claimed that Sobol and Navalny "may have been the masterminds and organizers of this horrible crime."
Regardless of Prigozhin's claims, even a Russian courtroom acknowledged in 2019 that Harmony Group was in charge for the meals poisoning and ordered it to pay compensation.
Navalny himself survived a poisoning try in 2020.
A joint investigation by The Insider, Bellingcat, CNN, and Der Spiegel revealed that Navalny had been poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent by brokers of Russia's Federal Safety Service.
In February 2024, Navalny died in a Russian jail. Unbiased consultants say that he was both killed deliberately or died as a result of harsh circumstances and lack of medical remedy.
Navalny's workforce didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The Kyiv IndependentOleg Sukhov