The United States has accused Russian mercenaries of exploiting natural resources in the Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan and other parts of Africa to help fund Moscow’s war in Ukraine, a charge Russia rejected as “anti-Russian rage.”
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The country’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the Wagner Group of mercenaries were exploiting natural resources and “these ill-gotten gains are used to fund Moscow’s war machine in Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine.”
“Make no mistake: people across Africa are paying a heavy price for the Wagner Group’s exploitative practices and human rights violations,” Thomas-Greenfield told a UN Security Council meeting on the financing of armed groups through illicit trafficking of natural resources in Africa.
Wagner, staffed by veterans of the Russian armed forces, has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, Mali and other countries.
It was founded in 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and started supporting pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, a Reuters report said.
But the Russian UN Ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said he regretted that Thomas-Greenfield raised the issue of “Russian support to African partners.”
“This exposes their real plans and aims – what they really need from African countries,” said Nebenzia, without elaborating.
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