The Daily Beast claimed in late March that Wagner slaughtered Chinese miners in the Central African Republic (CAR), which was analyzed at the time here to be a fake news provocation aimed at weakening the Sino-Russo Entente. There’s now no longer any doubt about this conclusion after the group’s social media channels shared photos of their members posing with the Chinese miners who they recently rescued in early July. That’s not the only false claim that this latest development debunked, though.
Those among the Alt-Media Community (AMC) who were manipulated by the US into smearing all of Wagner as “Western agents” in the aftermath of their chief’s failed coup attempt a couple weeks ago also have egg on their face. If there was any truth to their allegations, then the group would have been asked to leave the CAR shortly after that happened and the Chinese Embassy also wouldn’t have reportedly requested their help to save those miners.
The third false claim that was debunked concerns the speculation that Wagner would either be disbanded or defanged after the abovementioned incident. As was explained here regarding President Putin meeting with its leaders (including Yevgeny Prigozhin) a few days after the failed coup attempt, the Russian leader envisages restructuring the group but in a way that retains its efficiency. After all, Wager is indispensable to advancing Russian policy in Africa, which was elaborated on here, here, and here.
This latest development therefore shows that nothing has actually changed with respect to Wagner’s activities in the CAR at least. It’s still defending that country, its citizens, and their guests from Hybrid War threats per its mandate there, which aligns with their homeland’s national interests. Wagner members wouldn’t continue operating in the CAR if the Kremlin wasn’t sure of their loyalty to the state nor would they continue their patriotic duty if they had any second thoughts about this either.
These observations lend credence to the conclusion that Prigozhin got carried away with his so-called “anti-corruption campaign” against the Defense Ministry, which is why he marched on Moscow and didn’t turn back even after President Putin told him to stop. Wagner members went along with this because they were brainwashed by his demagogic rhetoric and also weren’t aware that the Supreme-Commander-In-Chief was against their march since they didn’t have their cell phones with them.
What could have otherwise remained a mutiny had Prigozhin stopped when President Putin told him to thus turned into a coup attempt after he continued marching, which challenged the Russian leader’s constitutional authority. The latter understood this and that’s why he mercifully gave the Wagner chief a final chance to save his life, which also averted the civil war that the West expected and subsequently planned to exploit for geopolitical gain.
The AMC and their Mainstream Media rivals who predicted that President Putin would carry out a “purge” after this incident were both proven wrong since there’s no proof whatsoever that anything of the sort has happened. To the contrary, practically nothing has changed in any way, largely because the Russian leader understood what was going through Prigozhin’s mind when he committed treason as well as how he got some of his group’s members to go along with this.
Wagner’s rescue of Chinese miners in the CAR confirms this assessment since it wouldn’t have happened if Russia regarded the group as a whole to be traitors and also didn’t appreciate their importance in advancing its national interests in Africa. Not only does this latest development debunk the Daily Beast’s fake news a few months back alleging that this group slaughtered Chinese miners, but it should also serve to correct the false perceptions that many have about the aftermath of Prigozhin’s coup attempt.
