The New York Times published a long
report
in which it said that the mysterious Russian Wagner network obtained a lot of money and gold from Sudan, and established itself there and became a contributor to crushing the democratic movement in the country.
The report, written by the newspaper's chief correspondent in Africa, Declan Walsh, revealed information about Wagner's activities in prospecting for gold in the depths of the desert in the "Northern" state in Sudan, and the facilities it established there.
He said that the records of the company and the Sudanese government show that one of the gold mines visited by the newspaper - about 10 miles from the town of Al-Obeidiya in the state - is considered one of the outposts of the Wagner Group, which it described as an opaque network of Russian mercenaries, mining companies and political influence operations in Sudan and the African continent.
Hired guns
The report pointed out that Wagner was famous for being a supplier of "paid guns", and it is controlled by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the aim of the Russian expansion by force in a wide area of Africa extending into Sudan, Libya, the Sahel countries, Mozambique, Tanzania, Central Africa and others.
The report quoted Western experts and officials who follow Wagner's activities on the continent, that the network has evolved in recent years to become a broader and more sophisticated tool for the Kremlin's power.
Rather than a single mission, it expanded into interconnected operations of fighting, making money and exploiting influence, as a low-cost tool for Putin that he could easily disavow.
The report mentioned a lot of previously published information about Wagner about its beginning in 2014 as a group of mercenaries backed by the Kremlin who supported Putin's first war in eastern Ukraine, and its subsequent spread in Syria, and about its leader and focus of its operations Yevgeny V.
Prigozhin, known as "Putin's Chef", was indicted in America for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election, and more.
torrent of gold
He said that Wagner's activity in Sudan - the third largest producer of gold on the continent - reveals the extent of its expansion and the multiplicity of its tasks.
It has secured lucrative Sudanese mining concessions that produce a torrent of gold, bolstering the $130 billion Kremlin stockpile, which US officials fear could be used to cushion the impact of economic sanctions in the Ukraine war, by bolstering the ruble.
In eastern Sudan, the report says, Wagner supports the Kremlin's efforts to build a naval base on the Red Sea to host its nuclear-powered warships.
In western Sudan, Wagner found a launching pad for mercenary operations in neighboring countries, and a potential source of uranium.
power hungry
The report went on to say that since the Sudanese army seized power in the coup last October, Wagner intensified its partnership with the "power-hungry leader" Lieutenant-General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, nicknamed Hemedti, who visited Moscow in the early days of the current Ukraine war, and attributed to Western officials that Wagner provided military assistance to General Daglo and helped Sudanese security forces quell a "fragile popular movement" pro-democracy.
The newspaper quoted Samuel Ramani of the Royal United Services Institute - a defense research group in London - and author of a forthcoming book on "Russia in Africa", as saying that Sudan represents the type of country in which Wagner thrives.
She pointed out that it was the famous meeting of former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with the Russian president in the coastal resort of Sochi in 2017, which paved the way for Wagner to come to Sudan.
She said that Lieutenant-General Hemedti and the general manager of the Sudanese Mining Company, Mubarak Ardol, refused to give an interview to the New York Times to prepare this report.
The report stated that over the 18 months following the fall of the Omar al-Bashir regime, the Meri Gold Mining Company - affiliated with the Wagner leader - imported a shipment to Sudan, according to Russian customs records, that included mining and construction equipment, military trucks, amphibious vehicles and two transport helicopters.
One of these planes was spotted a year later in the Central African Republic, where Wagner fighters were protecting the country's president, and where Wagner's leader Prigozhin obtained lucrative diamond-mining concessions.
They urged him to execute some of the protesters
The report said that the Russians urged Al-Bashir - in a memorandum in late 2018 at the beginning of the December popular revolution against his regime - to run a campaign to discredit the demonstrators, and publicly execute some of them as a warning and intimidation for others.
When Sudanese army generals ousted their president, al-Bashir, and placed him under house arrest in April 2019, the Russians quickly changed course.
A week later, a plane belonging to Prigozhin arrived in Khartoum, carrying a delegation of senior Russian military officials, and returned to Moscow with senior Sudanese army officials, including the brother of General Hemedti, who appeared at the time as a power broker, according to flight data obtained by the Russian Novaya Gazeta newspaper. .
Six weeks later, on June 3, 2019, Hemedti's forces launched a bloody operation to disperse pro-democracy demonstrators in front of the army's general command in central Khartoum, in which at least 120 people were killed.
Within two weeks of that bloody operation, Mr. Le Prigozhin's Meri Gold company imported 13 tons of riot shields, as well as helmets and batons, to a company controlled by the Hemedti family.
The meeting of Al-Bashir (left) and the famous Putin in the coastal resort of Sochi in 2017, which paved the way for Wagner to come to Sudan (Reuters)
A campaign of misinformation and exacerbation of divisions
At about that time, a Russian disinformation campaign using fake social media accounts sought to exacerbate political divisions in Sudan, using technology similar to that used to interfere in the 2016 US elections, and Facebook shut down 172 of these fake accounts in October. October 2019 and May 2021, linking her directly to Mr. Prigozhin.
The report listed a lot of information about how the Wagner Group carries out its activities in gold mining in the Ubaidiya area, how it buys it from the people, and how soldiers from Hemedti's Rapid Support Forces protect Wagner's personnel.
The report said that when the New York Times team approached the gate of the Merry Gold factory, Sudanese engineer Ahmed Abdel Moneim wanted to be helpful, and said that about 30 Russians and 70 Sudanese worked there, pointing to living quarters, workshops and shiny metal towers.
Before he could complete the details, a message in Russian flew over the radio inside the factory. Then a minibus drove outside, driven by a white-looking man, sporty in shorts, sunglasses and a green khaki shirt, avoiding eye contact with the newspaper team, and the bus away with Abdul Monem, she invited the newspaper team to leave.
smuggling most of the gold
The newspaper quoted Sudanese experts and officials as saying that the Hemedti family controls the gold trade, about 70% of which is smuggled, according to estimates of the Central Bank of Sudan obtained by the New York Times.
Most of the gold passes through the UAE, the main hub for unauthorized African gold, she said.
Western officials say it is most likely smuggled in this way, allowing government taxes to be avoided, and perhaps even a share of the revenue owed to the Sudanese government.
The newspaper added that from February to June 2021, Sudanese anti-corruption officials tracked 16 Russian cargo flights that landed in Port Sudan from Latakia, Syria, and some flights operated by the 223rd Aviation Unit of the Russian Army, began near Moscow, The New York Times was able to verify most of those flights using flight tracking services.
She said that on suspicion that the planes were being used to smuggle gold, officials raided one flight before it took off on June 23 last year, but when they were about to open its shipment, a Sudanese general intervened, citing an order from the head of Sudan's ruling Sovereign Council, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
A former senior anti-corruption official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the plane was transferred to the military section of the airport and left for Syria two hours later without inspection.
Al-Burhan refused to interview the newspaper's team
The New York Times said that Lieutenant-General Al-Burhan refused to give an interview during the preparation of this report, and a member of the ruling Sovereign Council, General Ibrahim Jaber, downplayed the accounts of Russian smuggling operations, saying, "People are talking, but you need evidence."
The report pointed to an attempt by Prigozhin to obtain Sudanese support, by donating 198 tons of food to the poor of Sudan last year during the month of Ramadan, "a gift from Yevgeny Prigozhin." On the boxes of rice, sugar and lentils, a phrase reminiscent of the Cold War was written: "From Russia with love."
The donation - which was provided through a subsidiary of Merry Gold Company - included 28 tons of sweets that were specially imported from Russia. The report quoted Musa Qasmallah, head of the Sudanese Charitable Society that distributed the aid, as saying, "It was intended for children, but everyone enjoyed it."
Regarding these gifts, the report said that an obstacle arose by Prigozhin's insistence on transferring 10 tons of food to Port Sudan, where Russia was pressing for maritime access, instead of the areas most in need, which annoyed Mr. Qassem Allah, who said, "It indicates that the gesture It was more about politics than humanity."
sarcastic and insulting interpretation
In response to the New York Times, Prigozhin wrote that he "has nothing to do with the Merry Gold Company," adding that he knew that the company was "currently under liquidation," and confirmed that the "charitable donation" came "at the order of a Sudanese woman with whom he had friendly, practical, and sexual relations." ".
The New York Times commented that Prigozhin's statement is a cynical interpretation likely to cause a particular insult to a conservative Muslim community.
The report also noted that Wagner's main military ally in Sudan, General Hemedti, has sought popular support, saying that since he "betrayed" al-Bashir in 2019, Hemedti has sought to distance himself from his reputation as a ruthless leader in the Darfur conflict that has killed an estimated 300,000. Civilian in the first decade of this century.
Instead, Hemedti indicated his ambition to lead Sudan and build a popular support base for him among the traditional chiefs he tried to court with money and vehicles, diplomats said.
Two senior Western officials told the newspaper that Wagner organized a visit for General Hemedti in February to Moscow, where he arrived on the eve of the war in Ukraine.
Although the trip was ostensibly to discuss an economic aid package, they said, Hemedti arrived with gold bars on his plane and asked Russian officials to help obtain armed drones.
On his return to Sudan a week later, Hemedti declared that he had "no problem" with Russia opening a base in the Red Sea.
Support the coup "to steal gold"
Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Russian disinformation networks in Sudan have launched 9 times more fake news than they did before, in an attempt to garner support for the Kremlin, said Emil Khan of Valent Projects, a London-based company that monitors the flow of disinformation.
She added that Wagner's message was not welcomed by everyone, as several protests erupted against Meri Gold's operations in the mining areas, and a Sudanese YouTube personality known as Al-Bashoum (meaning the fox) attracted large audiences with videos claiming to lift the lid on Wagner's activities.
The report also said that pro-democracy protesters in Sudan assume that Moscow was behind the military coup last October against the Sudanese government, and some wrote on a poster that appeared in Khartoum recently: "Russia supported the coup to be able to steal our gold."