"CAR for Trump"

In February 2024, a column of 50 motorcyclists held a ride in the capital of the Central African Republic, Bangui, which ended with a picket at the US Embassy. The protesters held posters: “CAR is for Donald Trump,” “We are for Morocco,” “We are for Algeria,” “We are for all of Africa.”

“Our demonstration is aimed at supporting the candidacy of former American leader Donald Trump, who did not interfere in African affairs during his presidency. Trump is the one who will lead the US forward. We also stand for the independence of all African states,” said one of the participants.

This action, information about which was widely distributed in the media and social networks, was planned by an organization consisting of former employees of the structures of the founder of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin. This follows from an archive of more than 1.4 thousand pages, which an anonymous source handed over to the pan-African publication The Continent. Among them are lists of employees, invoices, air tickets, materials indicating the propaganda and information activities of Russians abroad.

The documents mainly cover the period of operation of the “Company”, as employees themselves call it, from January to October 2024 and concern more than 20 countries in Africa, as well as some countries in Latin America. Important Stories, together with The Continent, Forbidden Stories, the Dossier Center, the All Eyes On Wagner and openDemocracy projects, confirmed the authenticity of these documents and found out what former employees of Yevgeny Prigozhin continued to do.

What operations did the “Company” engage in and how much did they cost?

According to the documents received, the organization’s expenses for 10 months alone amounted to almost 660 million rubles. For example, in February 2024, more than 57 thousand dollars or more than 5 million rubles were spent on organizing the rally “For Trump” in the CAR and several other similar events (for example, a round table meeting of the Initiative Committee to Investigate US Activities in the CAR or the flash mob “Against American Influence!”). Part of the funds went to pay various African media that covered the picket (they paid from 220 to 800 dollars for an article, that is, from about 20 to 70 thousand rubles). As follows from the documents, organizing publications in the media was an important part of the company’s work - more than 300 thousand dollars could be spent on this per month (almost 30 million rubles at the average rate of 2024).

The narratives that the “Company” disseminated in African media were presented to local residents through support for the idea of ​​African sovereignty. As follows from the document entitled “Confederation of Independence,” the work with Africa was supposed to exploit dissatisfaction with the former colonial powers, primarily France and Great Britain. The final goal of the work in the document was formulated as follows: “The company is working on a plan for reformatting the African space - creating a belt of regimes friendly to the Russian Federation in states above the equator from Guinea-Conakry to Somalia.”

Thus, in Namibia, in an attempt to strengthen the position of the ruling party candidate in the presidential election, the Company distributed a false letter claiming that the British government was funding the opposition. Internal reports later boasted that the news reached 1.7 million people on social media and forced the British ambassador to Namibia to issue a denial on national television.

Employees of the “Company” paid special attention to promoting the law on foreign agents based on the Russian model. Thus, one of the reports says that political strategists recommended that the Burkina Faso authorities arrest “foreign agents” and also stop broadcasting French media. The “company” also actively disseminated anti-Ukrainian narratives, including that “Ukraine supports terrorism in Africa.”

The “company” was also engaged in “squeezing out corporations from unfriendly countries” from the extraction of natural resources in Africa. The documents claim that it was its employees who drafted the new mining code, which was adopted by the Mali government. The adoption of this code eventually led to a major conflict with a Canadian mining company. Cooperation between Mali and Russia in the field of gold mining has only strengthened.

In addition to Africa, former “Prigozhinites” were actively involved in Latin America, it follows from the documents. For example, employees of the “Company” tried to stabilize the regime of Bolivian President Luis Arce after the coup attempt in June 2024. The archive also contains evidence of commissioned publications in Argentine media.

Who works for the “Company” and how is it connected with SVR

According to documents, as well as information received by Forbidden Stories from its sources, in total at least 60 Russians worked for the “Company” in Africa and Latin America. Some of them are former associates of Prigozhin, for example Sergei Mashkevich and Sergei Klyukin.

Mashkevich occupied a high place in the hierarchy of Prigozhin’s structures and was the head of his African back office until at least 2022. Sergei Klyukin worked for Prigozhin in Sudan, the Dossier Center wrote : he was one of the leaders of the operational headquarters in Khartoum.

Another notable name mentioned in the documents is Prigozhin’s former political strategist Maxim Shugaley. In particular, he worked on the election campaign of the President of the Republic of Chad, Mahamat Déby. Shugaley promoted the narrative that Deby's rival, Suxes Masra, was allegedly supported by the United States.

Shugaley is known for the fact that in 2019 he was arrested in Libya for trying to influence the upcoming presidential elections in the country, spent a year and a half under arrest and was released after Prigozhin’s intervention. In September 2024, Shugaley was detained in the capital of Chad, N'Djamena, but was soon released.

In addition to the people working for the “Company,” the documents repeatedly mention the abbreviation “SVR.” From the context it is clear that we are talking about the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. In addition, Forbidden Stories sources among European intelligence agencies confirmed to journalists that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service took the “Company” under its wing at the end of 2023.

In the project with “strategies for further work” in Africa, its authors repeatedly mention that the “Company” will be provided with “assistance to the Foreign Intelligence Service,” for example, in “infiltrating agents of Russian influence” into the leadership of the UN mission in the CAR and in providing information about the plans of France and the United States for a military-political presence in the Sahel. Also, the SVR was supposed to help ensure that “the Russian Ministry of Defense does not counteract the specialists of the Wagner PMC” in the territories of the Central African Republic and Libya.

Earlier, the All Eyes On Wagner project and Radio Liberty reported that Prigozhin’s mercenary in the CAR, Vitaly Perfilyev, who oversaw cooperation with the local police, was replaced by SVR officer Denis Pavlov. The source of All Eyes On Wagner believes that Bagrat Shinkuba is also connected with the SVR - he was spotted at a meeting of the Russian delegation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mali on August 31, 2023. He was introduced as “chargé d’affaires of the Russian Federation in Mali.”

None of the people mentioned, as well as the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, responded to journalists’ questions.

Previously, Important Stories, together with Forbidden Stories and other partners , told how a former Wagner employee exposed the work of Russian propaganda in the Central African Republic.