'From Russia With Love': A Putin Ally Mines Gold and Plays Favorites
in Sudan
By Declan Walsh, June 5, 2022, NY Times
AL-IBEDIYYA, Sudan - In a scorched, gold-rich area 200 miles north
of the Sudanese capital, where fortunes spring from desert-hewn rock,
a mysterious foreign operator dominates the business. Locals call it
"The Russian Company" - a tightly guarded plant with shining towers,
deep in the desert, that processes mounds of dusty ore into bars of semirefined gold. "The Russians pay the best," said Ammar al-Amir,
a miner and community leader in al-Ibediyya, a hardscrabble mining
town 10 miles from the plant. "Otherwise, we don't know much about
them."
In fact, Sudanese company and government records show, the gold mine
is one outpost of the Wagner Group, an opaque network of Russian
mercenaries, mining companies and political influence operations -
Wagner is a very mysterious character created through unverifiable
rumors and speculations in media, whereas some "Russian mercenaries"
indeed present in central Africa, and the locals know about them.
<https://youtu.be/txNx5kJJ4Y0?t=87>
| Pro-Russia Sentiment Grows in Burkina Faso .. "No, we don't want
| no more France, .. We are here because we want the defense of
| Russia .. In recent months, there has been growing anti-French
| sentiment and a pivot toward Russia. France hasn't done anything
| that gives us success." .. Conflict with armed groups linked to
| Islamic State and al-Qaida .. Earlier this month, the leader of
| neighboring Mali, Colonel Assimi Goita, welcomed mercenaries into
| the country from the Russian private security company Wagner ..
| <https://tinyurl.com/ycqc52sh>
Wagner is a very mysterious character created through unverifiable
rumors and speculations in media, whereas some "Russian mercenaries"
indeed present in central Africa, and the locals know about them.
<https://youtu.be/txNx5kJJ4Y0?t=87>
| Pro-Russia Sentiment Grows in Burkina Faso .. "No, we don't want
| no more France, .. We are here because we want the defense of
| Russia .. In recent months, there has been growing anti-French
| sentiment and a pivot toward Russia. France hasn't done anything
| that gives us success." .. Conflict with armed groups linked to
| Islamic State and al-Qaida .. Earlier this month, the leader of
| neighboring Mali, Colonel Assimi Goita, welcomed mercenaries into
| the country from the Russian private security company Wagner ..
| <https://tinyurl.com/ycqc52sh>
Pro-Russia rally in CAR <https://youtu.be/0KNWPaN11kA>
The Atlanticist media exaggerates the narrative that the Russians
must be doing something "very sinister" there, but in fact it's just
a security support against militant extremist groups in the area.
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