President Vladimir Putin wants to replace Wagner commanders in the Central African Republic (CAR) loyal to Yevgeny Prigozhin after the leader of the infamous mercenary group led an insurrection at the weekend, The Daily Beast has learned.
According to a number of well-placed officials in the restive African nation, Russian government officials have informed their CAR counterparts that Wagner operations in the country would continue, but the Kremlin intends to replace the group’s leadership, meaning that Prigozhin’s allies including notorious operations leaders Dmitry Syty and Vitaly Perfilev are on the verge of being booted out.
“They’ve been phone calls today from senior Russian officials to the president assuring him that Wagner would remain in the country and that things would continue to move smoothly,” an adviser to President Faustin-Archange Touadéra told The Daily Beast privately. “But they have also mentioned that the leaders are going to be replaced.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that the Wagner mercenaries deployed to West and Central Africa would not be withdrawn following the mutiny. But the Kremlin’s apparent desire to kick out Prigozhin’s right-hand men who run the group on his behalf is a move that isn’t being welcomed in CAR.
“A number of senior cabinet members met and agreed that the prime minister should inform Russia’s defense ministry that the country prefers to continue working with the current leadership,” said the presidential adviser. “The country is very happy with what the leadership has achieved so far.”
A senior CAR military figure also told The Daily Beast in private that he had heard from a senior government official that the leadership of the Wagner Group is going to be replaced.
“Someone in the president’s cabinet told me Russia wants a change in leadership,” said the official who works at the CAR army headquarters in the capital, Bangui. “He clearly doesn’t like the idea.”
The leadership of the Wagner Group in CAR is extremely loyal to Prigozhin. About two weeks ago, Alexander Ivanov, Wagner’s spokesperson in the country and the liaison between Prigozhin and the group’s operations in CAR, released a statement condemning a directive by the Russian government that all private military companies must enter into contracts with the Defense Ministry by July 1, claiming the move was “an attempt by the Minister of Defense to seize power” from Prigozhin, and backing the decision of the Wagner boss not to comply. “I fully support Yevgeny Prigozhin’s decision that Wagner PMC will not sign any contracts with the ministry of defense for the time being,” he said.
While Ivanov, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in January, acts as a link man between Russia and Wagner mercenaries in CAR, the operations of the group is overseen by both Syty and Perfilev, two men who are accused of supervising Wagner's human rights abuses in the country.
Syty acts as the group’s operational leader and plays the role of communications adviser to President Touadéra. Last December, Prigozhin called him “a patriot of Russia and the Central African Republic” after he survived a mail bomb explosion that left him seriously injured and hospitalized for days. He was placed under financial sanctions by the U.S. Treasury in September 2020 as one of several Russian nationals said to be active in CAR with links to Prigozhin.
Perfilev, on the other hand, acts as the National Security Adviser to Touadéra and is said to be best friends with Dmitry Utkin, Prigozhin’s right-hand man and co-founder of the Wagner Group. He is also very close to Touadéra, to whom he has direct access and speaks with on a regular basis. Perfilev supervises all Wagner contractors present in the country.
“These two men have sacrificed so much for us,” an official in the office of CAR Prime Minister Felix Moloua told The Daily Beast privately. “They are very important to the Central African Republic.”
The government, he says, “really doesn’t want these men to leave at this moment when armed groups are threatening again.”
In recent months, Moloua, who was appointed prime minister in February 2022, has been the liaison between the CAR government and Russia. He met with the Russian Defense Ministry leadership in Moscow in January in a bid to strengthen his country’s ties with Wagner. Before he became premier, he was CAR’s minister of economic planning and international cooperation during a period when Wagner began to do business in the country and gained a foothold in the mining sector.
“He has a good relationship with the Russian defense minister,” the official in the prime minister’s office said about the CAR premier. “Let’s see if he succeeds [in convincing Russia to keep Prigozhin's commanders].”
But the Touadéra administration’s appreciation for men like Syty and Perfilev may not only be as a result of their so-called successes in their fight against rebel groups. Many have accused government officials of benefitting from Wagner’s illicit gold and diamond trade in the form of bribes and kickbacks in deals cut by Prigozhin’s commanders.
“Corruption is more of what binds Wagner and the Central African Republic government together.” Jacob Biakolo, a Cameroon-based human rights campaigner who was previously a contractor at the economy ministry, told The Daily Beast. “The Wagner leaders here are working hand in hand with corrupt government officials to enable millions of dollars in diamonds to bypass the country and deprive it of the revenue it seriously needs.”
CAR officials insist that the two top Wagner leaders are the reason why the country hasn’t been taken over by rebels. Perfilev, for example, is credited as the commander responsible for defending the capital, Bangui, when rebels attacked in December 2020. He is also hailed for leading a successful counterattack shortly afterward. In Bangui, he is highly revered, even by members of the president’s cabinet who sometimes seek his intervention to get favors from Touadéra. Whether the government he has become so attached to can help him secure his position is yet to be seen.
“I’m sure the government would try the best they can to ensure that he stays,” said the presidential adviser. “But the final decision rests with Moscow.”
