The departure of hundreds of Russian Wagner troops from the Central African Republic is part of a rotation of forces rather than a withdrawal, a spokesperson for the CAR presidency said Saturday.
The short-lived mutiny led by Wagner mercenary founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in Russia in June has raised questions about the outlook for his group’s sprawling network of military and commercial operations across CAR, other parts of Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.
Reports of the recent departure of large numbers of Wagner personnel from CAR by plane have fueled speculation in recent days that the group is pulling out of the country, where they have been helping the government to quell several rebel insurgencies since 2018.
But CAR presidential spokesperson Albert Yaloke Mokpem said “It is not a definitive departure but a rotation.”
“Some have left, and others will come,” he said at a press conference in the capital, Bangui.
Several hundred Wagner troops have recently left the country, a military source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity and without giving further details.
It is not known how many remain. About 1,900 Russian mercenaries, including from Wagner, were believed to be operating there.
Any restructuring of Wagner operations in CAR could have substantial commercial ramifications.
Analysts have said Wagner received logging rights and control of a gold mine in CAR.
In June the United States put sanctions on a CAR company as one of several, including one from the UAE, that it said was involved in financing Wagner through illicit gold dealings.
Meanwhile, Mercenary fighters of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group are preparing to move to Belarus under the terms of a deal that defused their mutiny against Russia’s military leadership, a senior commander of the group was quoted as saying.
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Since the June 23-24 mutiny, which saw Wagner fighters briefly seize a southern Russian city and march towards Moscow, the exact whereabouts of Prigozhin and his mercenaries have been unclear.
Under the deal that ended the mutiny, Prigozhin was meant to move to Belarus and his men – some of them ex-convicts freed early to fight in Ukraine – were given the option to move with him to Belarus, join Russia’s regular armed forces, or go home.
However, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that Prigozhin and thousands of his fighters were still in Russia, raising questions about the deal’s implementation.
Anton Yelizarov, whose nom de guerre is “Lotus“, was quoted on Saturday by a channel on the Telegram messaging app as saying the fighters were now taking vacation until early August, on Prigozhin’s orders, before moving to Belarus.
“We have to prepare bases, training grounds, coordinate with local governments and administrations, organise the interaction with the law enforcement agencies of Belarus and establish logistics,” he was quoted by the “Yevgeny Prigozhin on Telegram” channel as saying.
By Agencies