According to two former militants from the Central African Republic, the notorious Wagner Group in Russia has abandoned hundreds of former Central African Republic (CAR) rebels in the Donbas region of Ukraine after enlisting them to fight in Vladimir Putin’s war, The Daily Beast was told by.
According to the CAR sources, many of the approximately one hundred former Union for Peace (UPC) fighters who are currently located in Ukraine have lost contact with Wagner after the group trained them and flew them to the Donbas region approximately eight months ago. These CAR sources joined Wagner after leaving the UPC rebel group in December of last year and were recruited by Wagner.
Ali, who was not a part of the group that was sent to Ukraine, told The Daily Beast that “some of our colleagues have called us [on the phone] to inform us that the Russian soldiers who took them to eastern Ukraine deployed them to a particular town and left them to fight on their own.” “Some of our colleagues have called us [on the phone] to inform us that the Russian soldiers who took them to eastern Ukraine deployed them to a particular town and left them to fight on their “As we speak, it’s been months since they’ve been paid, and they can’t even afford to buy food for themselves.” (The Daily Beast has modified the names of the Black Russians mentioned in the story in order to save them from the possibility of receiving retaliation.)
According to Ali, some former UPC recruits, who are commonly called to as “Black Russians” by many people in CAR, are now being forced to “steal from civilians” in order to be able to survive the difficult conditions in Ukraine.
According to senior CAR military officials who spoke with The Daily Beast in March, more than 200 former UPC rebels traveled to Moscow in February, the same month that Russia invaded Ukraine, for military training that was initially expected to last for weeks at a Wagner camp. According to these officials, the training was supposed to last at a Wagner camp. In that same month, only half of the troops returned to the country; the other half remained in Russia to continue their mission in Ukraine.
“By the middle of March, everyone [the Black Russians] were in eastern Ukraine fighting for Russia,” Hassan, who, like Ali, wasn’t among the Black Russians sent to Ukraine but has been in contact with some of his colleagues there, told The Daily Beast. “By the middle of March, everyone [the Black Russians] were in eastern Ukraine fighting for Russia.” “However, our people are now claiming that their [Russian] commanders have abandoned them and left them to fend for themselves. They are not being watched by anyone.”
According to Hassan, who says he has spoken to three of his colleagues in November and that all of them fear for their lives, the situation for Black Russians in Ukraine is “awful.” Hassan described the situation as “bad.” Hassan explained, “They’ve told me that they don’t even have ammunition to fight.” “Their coworkers have not seen some of them for several months,” the sentence reads.
A coalition of fighters from key rebel organizations that was formed in the year 2020 with the intention of disrupting a general election in Central Africa included the rebels before they joined Wagner.
In December of last year, hundreds of rebels from the UPC, whose leader Ali Darassa was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Department of the Treasury approximately a year ago, began to surrender to the government of the Central African Republic. Both the government and the Wagner group offered incentives for rebels to abandon the UPC, including promises that the fighters would work closely with CAR troops and Wagner mercenaries to fight other rebels. Among these promises was the offer that the rebels would work closely with CAR troops and Wagner mercenaries. Combatants like Ali and Hassan, who were both in their 30s at the time, shifted camps in the hope that they would be better provided for. On the other hand, they aren’t faring any better at home, much like their colleagues who are now stationed in Ukraine.
According to both Ali and Hassan, the Black Russians have not received any payment from Wagner or the Central African Republic government, which had pledged to put them on a monthly stipend. This has been the case for the majority of the year. However, they continue to collaborate closely with Wagner in the fight against rebel groups operating within the country. These groups have banded together under the banner of the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), and their goal is to overthrow the government that is led by President Faustin-Archange Touadéra.
Hassan stated that collaborating with the Russians is extremely challenging due to the fact that they do not trust any of us. “They drag us all across the country with them on a regular basis without providing us with any specific information regarding our destination.”
But the fact that scores of Ali and Hassan’s coworkers in the Central African Republic have been going missing without a trace over the past few months is the thing that worries them the most.
Ali stated that over the course of the past two months, up to fifty of their coworkers had inexplicably vanished. Nobody knows where they are, and the Russians aren’t providing any answers to questions concerning their whereabouts.
According to Ali, there is a widespread belief among Black Russians in the Central African Republic (CAR) that their lost colleagues may have been transferred to Ukraine to fight for Russia, but “no one is convinced.”
According to Ali, “There are also a few persons who are suspicious that they may have been sent on a perilous assignment either domestically or internationally, and that they have been killed as a result of this,” Because the Russians conduct themselves in such a way that nothing is done in the open, it is possible that the truth will never be known.
Ali and Hassan made the decision to separate themselves from Wagner just one week ago out of the concern that they, too, may go missing. They are not alone in this regard. The two men claim that as many as thirty former members of the UPC Rebel Alliance had lately deserted the organization. According to one estimate from a regional publication, there have been forty Black Russians who have severed their ties with Wagner so far.
The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) as well as Yevgeny Prigozhin, a personal friend of Vladimir Putin who is the head of the Wagner Group, have not replied to emails provided to them by The Daily Beast in which The Daily Beast requested responses on the charges made by Ali and Hassan. Both the spokesperson for the CAR government and Concord Management, a corporation in which Prigozhin holds a majority ownership stake, did not respond to emails sent to them.
In spite of claims that they are mistreated and that some of their coworkers have vanished without a trace, a sizeable number of Black Russians continue to be employed by the Wagner Group. There is, however, no better time to leave the organization than right now for those people who have had enough of its excesses.
Hassan told us that if we didn’t go, people would eventually start to say that we had vanished without a trace. “With these Russians, it’s possible to accomplish anything.”