This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchett with my colleague Anatole Leven, the

Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The Russian future is cloudy. However, Russia

in Africa emerging from the fog of war because of the death of Pregozion, there are more

and more revelations about how active Pregozion and other private armies have been in Africa.

I name the state Sudan, Libyan, Burkina Faso, Mali. There are more Central African Republic

and now Nigerian conversation with Vagna Group or its remnant or with private armies.

Anatole, this is a fascination because they're not at all regarded as invaders of Vagna Group.

They're regarded as soldiers or mercenaries or men for hire that have sustained these regimes.

This looks like it's been long-standing. Does it empower Russia in Africa in a way the Soviet Union

was never empowered? Absolutely. I mean, the thing is, you have to remember about Africa that

Western mercenaries have been active there for a very long time. Going back to the end of the

Western colonial empires in the 1960s, one only has to remember the critical role played by

Western mercenaries in the Congolese civil wars of the 1960s. The French foreign legion,

the British private Gurkha for British-owned private Gurkha force that intervened in Sierra

Leone, all of these groups are precedents for Vagna. It's not as if African leaderships regard

Vagna as something radically new and extraordinarily criminal and evil, but they obviously feel they've

seen this often before. The French foreign legion, of course, is a state force like the British

state Gurkha forces, but they are mercenaries. They are explicitly foreigners serving for pay.

I mean, no dishonor to them. My uncle was a Gurkha officer. They are true to, you know,

they swear an oath of allegiance for pay and they have been true to their oath. But so,

many of mercenaries throughout the ages. So we can expect, after, if there is an after,

Ukraine war, Russia's presence in Africa, for these states, this is generally describing

...