Russia has been hard at work kicking the United States out of Africa. It’s all but chased out France, too. But anyone who imagines Russia to be a kinder, gentler superpower is out of his mind.

The investigative journalist Philip Obaji has been following the activities of the Wagner group in Africa for years. He recently spent the months investigating human rights abuses by Russian paramilitaries in the Central African Republic, where he was abducted and tortured, only narrowly escaping alive.

His reports of the way Russian mercenaries are behaving in Africa won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been studying their behavior in Ukraine. Or Syria, for that matter, or Chechnya. It appears the Russians have gone full Mr. Kurtz, mass-murdering and raping everyone in their path with impunity, hauling off the gold and diamonds from the mines, and selling them on the black market. This is how Russia manages to sustain itself despite the West’s sanctions. Their motto, writes the Sentry, is “‘leave no trace’—in other words, kill everyone, including women and children.”

Because there’s so little journalism from Africa, this story is apt to be insufficiently appreciated in Western capitals. But unless you understand the African dimension of Russia’s war, you can’t understand what’s really happening and what’s at stake in Ukraine. Or vice-versa. When Ukrainians say they’re the victims of an unreconstructed colonial power, they’re absolutely right. The crimes Russia is now committing are exactly the ones for which France and the UK are incessantly apologizing. But neither France nor the UK (and certainly not the US) are committing these crimes right now. Russia is.

We discuss Philip’s very brave reporting on the Russian Wagner Group’s activities in CAR, his experiences of tracking them throughout Africa, and other major stories he follows. I hope he’ll come back to talk about some of the other stories he’s covered.

For those of you in a hurry, there’s a full transcript below.

Articles by Philip Obaji

* “Russians blindfolded us and made us dig mass graves to cover up their crimes.”Russian mercenaries dragged young men out of their homes and forced them to hide the evidence of a massacre of their friends and neighbors.

* Why Putin’s private army ordered soldiers to torture me. The Daily Beast correspondent Philip Obaji Jr. was abducted and beaten by soldiers while reporting on wrongdoing by the Wagner Group.

* Twins, 17: We were drugged and raped by Putin’s private army. A dozen girls have told The Daily Beast that they were kidnapped and sexually abused by Russian paramilitaries.

* Putin’s private army accused of sickening new massacre. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin may be dead, but witnesses say Russian paramilitaries in the Central African Republic slaughtered dozens of people to secure access to a gold mine.

* Putin’s private army filmed sex assault victims in Mali. Four witnesses describe their horrific ordeal at the hands of Russian mercenaries given a free pass by Putin’s regime.

* Putin’s private army accused of most heinous massacre yet. Witnesses in the Central African Republic are pointing a finger at the Wagner Group over a series of gruesome killings that allegedly involved disemboweling several women.

And more here.

Further reading

* All eyes on Wagner: Monitoring Wagner's activities across the globe

* Bois Rouge: How the Central African Republic gave away its forest to the private military group Wagner. Because of the inefficiency of the timber controls in Europe, Wagner conflict timber cannot be stopped from reaching European clients, despite existing sanctions.

* Architects of terror: The Wagner Group’s blueprint for state capture in the Central African Republic

Transcript

Claire: Hi, it’s Claire Berlinski, and you’re here in the Elephant Cage with Philip Obaji, an extremely interesting Nigerian journalist who has had some remarkable experiences in the Central African Republic, which is why I’ve invited him to speak to us today. Philip, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Philip: So I live in Abuja, that’s the capital of Nigeria, and I have been a contributor at The Daily Beast, a news website based in New York. I have covered war, counter insurgency, and the activities of jihadist groups in Western Central Africa for The Daily Beast since 2015. In the last couple of years, I have focused my reporting on these issues, almost entirely on the activities of the Russian Wagner Group, whose mercenaries have spread themselves across Western and Central Africa.

Claire: It’s a huge story, which is getting so much less attention than it deserves. And certainly it won’t get any attention in the US right now because of the election. Nothing’s getting any attention. I wanted to ask how you became interested in the Central African Republic.

Philip: So in, 2018, three Russian journalists traveled from Russia to the Central African Republic to investigate the activities of the Wagner Group. At the time, not many people had heard about the Wagner Group. The government of the Central African Republic had just reached an agreement with the Russian Federation for the supply of arms and private military instructors to the Central African Republic. And the Russian Federation had sent a group of so-called military instructors, as the Russians like to refer to Wagner mercenaries. So these three journalists went to the country to look into the activities of the group. But sadly, they were killed somewhere around Sibut, in the central part of the country. And the journalists were close friends of one of my colleagues, Anna Nemsova, at the Daily Beast. And my then-editor , Christopher Dickey—

Claire: —You knew Christopher? We miss him so much here.

Philip: Exactly. He was my editor, yeah. Chris asked that I look into what really happened with these three journalists. And I started to make phone calls to contacts in the Central African Republic. And then I found that there was something interesting about this group called Wagner. So, since then, I took it upon myself to continue where the three late journalists stopped, to know exactly what these Russians were up to, and then how to report on the activities.

Claire: Who killed them?

Philip: It’s still not known exactly who killed them. The investigations by the Central African government didn’t come up with any clear reports. So the government believes that there were local rebel gun men who assassinated the journalists, but many accusing fingers still point at the direction of the Russians, the Russian Wagner group.

Claire: It wouldn’t be a surprise, but there are a lot of candidates as I understand it. Perhaps you’d start by giving our listeners a bit of an introduction to the Central African Republic, because it’s probably not a country they’re very familiar with.

Philip: That’s correct. Even here in Africa, not many people are really conversant with the country. So, it’s a small country in terms of population in the central part of Africa. It borders Cameroon to the West and the Sudan to the East. And it’s a very impoverished country. And although it’s very rich in gold and diamond resources, much of its wealth has been plundered by its leaders. The country has been under a civil war since 2013, when Christian militias and Muslim rebels, fought against each other. And soon after the civil war began, the UN imposed an arms embargo on the Central African Republic.

So an election was held in 2016 that ushered in the current president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra. Unfortunately for the new president, he inherited a country that was pretty much in the hands of rebels and other militia g