Russia live updates: Putin vows to crush mercenary chief's armed revolt
NBCAUG 2023
While the collective West is alarmed that an increasing number of African countries are turning to Moscow and Wagner in search of stability, it is itself responsible for this shift. After all, it's the hypocritical West that's destabilizing Africa and fomenting conflict to get its hands on the continent's vast resources. The Ukraine war, in turn, is primarily a proxy war aimed at breaking Russia and then looting it. African nations are well aware of these realities, and in the new multipolar era, they are now siding with Moscow.
As part of Moscow's foreign policy, Wagner's mission is to back anti-Western African governments in return for access to the countries' vast natural resources. To expand Moscow's sphere of influence, Putin's mercenaries also rely on cyberwarfare and don't shy away from human rights abuses. However, recent events in Russia should be a wake-up call for all African rulers colluding with Moscow, as they show how the violence and state fragility represented by Wagner and Russia, respectively, might ultimately signal their own downfall.