Putin Still Raking in a Fortune From Wagner Group

The Russian government has brought in more than $2.5 billion from the African gold trade since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Putin's profit, according to the Blood Gold Report, released this month, is driven by the Wagner Group's influence in large parts of Africa, where the private military company (PMC) has established a foothold in recent years by offering security services and paramilitary assistance. Authors with the research program write that Wagner has "exclusive rights" to the largest goldmine in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Ndassima mine, "in return for propping up an authoritarian regime."

Wagner has also established control of a major gold refinery in Sudan, which, according to the Blood Gold Report, has allowed the PMC "to become the dominant buyer of unprocessed Sudanese gold, with multiple accounts of Russian military transport planes shipping processed gold out of the country." CNN reported in July 2022 that Russian officials began smuggling gold from Sudanese mines almost immediately after launching the war in Ukraine, according to sources familiar with the matter.

"In CAR and Sudan, where Wagner-linked entities are already subject to international sanctions, Kremlin actors rely on complex smuggling routes and corporate subterfuge tactics to extract large amounts of blood gold out of Africa to destinations such as Russia and the [United Arab Emirates] where it can be mixed with other legitimate sources of gold and converted to cash," according to the Blood Gold Report, a research program launched in September to investigate the link between Western mining companies, authoritarian governments in Africa and Wagner mercenaries.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment Wednesday evening.

In Mali, Wagner forces are being paid in cash by the military junta that took over the western African country in 2021. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Wagner forces first began deploying to Mali with the support of the Russian armed forces just months before Putin invaded Ukraine, and have played a key role in establishing the junta's control.

The Blood Gold Report said that members of the PMC are paid up to $10.8 million per month by the Malian government, which is funded largely by the tax revenues collected from a handful of Western-owned gold-mining companies in the country.

According to the project's authors, the gold extracted from African countries is "laundered into international markets that provides billions in revenue to the Russian state, thereby directly and indirectly financing Russia's war on Ukraine and global hybrid warfare infrastructure."

Following Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's death in August, the Russian military has taken full control of the PMC, which has played a major role in Putin's aggression in Ukraine. Wagner forces have repeatedly been accused of committing war crimes both in its fight against Ukraine as well as in parts of Africa in order to establish control.

"The ultimate objective of Wagner's playbook is to increase its clients' dependence on Wagner forces to stay in power, thereby securing a long-term revenue stream for the Kremlin and fostering authoritarianism and instability throughout the region as part of Russia's wider geopolitical strategy to distract and bog down the democratic West," read the Blood Gold Report.

"Since the death of [Prigozhin], the mercenary group has formally come under the control of the Russian State," the report continued. "Yet the Kremlin's focus on Africa, and its blood gold operations, show no signs of changing."