African leaders with ties to Russia had become accustomed to dealing with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the boastful, blasphemous mercenary leader who traveled around the continent by private jet, offering to prop up faltering regimes with weapons and propaganda in exchange for gold and diamonds.
But the Russian delegation that visited three African countries last week was led by a very different figure: the starchy Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov. Dressed in a khaki uniform and a ‘telnyashka’ – the horizontally striped undergarment of the Russian armed forces – he showed conformity and restraint, issuing assurances wrapped in polite language.
“We will do our best to help you,” he said at a news conference.
The contrast with the flamboyant Prigozhin could not have been sharper, and was in line with the message conveyed by the Kremlin: after Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash last month, Russia’s operations in Africa came under new management.
It was a glimpse of a shadowy battle now unfolding on three continents: the battle for the lucrative paramilitary and propaganda empire that enriched Mr. Prigozhin and served Russia’s military and diplomatic ambitions — until the Wagner leader’s failed attempt in June committed mutiny against the Kremlin. .
Interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials in Washington, Europe, Africa and Russia — as well as four Russians who worked for Mr. Prigozhin — paint a tug-of-war over his assets among key players in Russia’s power structure, including two different intelligence services. Many of those interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic and intelligence issues.
The struggle is complicated, these people said, by continued loyalty to Mr. Prigozhin in his private army, where some have balked at being subsumed into Russia’s Defense Ministry in favor of a transfer of power to the gentleman’s son Support Prigozhin.
“Wagner is not just about the money — it is a kind of religion,” said Maksim Shugalei, a political adviser to Mr. Prigozhin, adding that he was proud to be part of the mercenary force. “It is unlikely that this structure will disappear completely. For me this is impossible.”
Valerie Hopkins, Elian Peltier, Paul Sonne, Ekaterina Bodyagina, Alina Lobzina, Oleg Matsnev And King Abdulrahim reporting contributed.