Day 9: CAR - Monuments to Prigozhin

Region: Central African Republic

In December 2024, a bronze statue was unveiled outside the Russian House in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. Five meters tall, it depicts Yevgeny Prigozhin holding a walkie-talkie, wearing a bulletproof vest, standing alongside Dmitry Utkin with a Kalashnikov. The ceremony was attended by CAR’s Defense Minister, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, and senior military officials.

This was not CAR’s first monument to Russian mercenaries. In November 2021, President Faustin-Archange Touadera himself unveiled an earlier statue depicting Russian soldiers protecting a Central African woman and her children. There is also a propaganda film, a radio station, paid journalists, and a Russian national serving as the president’s security advisor.

The Central African Republic is not merely a country where Russia operates. It is the laboratory where Moscow perfected the model now exported across Africa – the seamless integration of military force, information warfare, economic extraction, and political capture.

The Blueprint’s Origin

Wagner Group mercenaries first arrived in CAR in 2018, initially as military instructors invited to train government forces. The country had been torn by civil war since 2013, when the Seleka rebel coalition overthrew President Francois Bozize. The successor government of Michel Djotodia collapsed within a year amid clashes between Seleka loyalists and anti-balaka militias.

By 2018, when Russia arrived, the government controlled little beyond Bangui. Armed groups held most of the territory. France, the former colonial power, maintained a military presence but had failed to restore stability. The United Nations had deployed peacekeepers. Neither had succeeded.

Russia offered something different: unconditional military support with no lectures about human rights or governance. Within months, a Russian national became President Touadera’s chief security advisor. Wagner forces began operating alongside government troops. By late 2020, when rebels launched an offensive before the December presidential election, it was Russian mercenaries who helped save the regime.¹

“It was said that 80% of the territory was occupied by armed groups. Today, thanks to Russia’s military cooperation, these figures are completely reversed,” Touadera told the BBC in December 2023.²

The Information Machine

What distinguished Russia’s operation in CAR was not military effectiveness alone but the construction of an entire information ecosystem designed to legitimize Russian presence while demonizing alternatives.

The machinery was exposed in late 2024 when Ephrem Yalike-Ngonzo, a Central African journalist, fled the country with a hard drive documenting years of work for Russian propaganda structures. His story, verified by Forbidden Stories and multiple international publications, revealed how the system operated from the inside.³

In November 2019, Yalike-Ngonzo was approached at a Bangui patisserie by a young Russian who introduced himself as “Misha.” The Russian offered money for articles promoting the CAR army and Wagner Group. The payment far exceeded normal rates for local journalists.

Yalike-Ngonzo’s workday began with analyzing “everything that was said about the Russians, about the authorities, both positive and negative.” Then he wrote articles “refuting the truthfulness of everything that opponents or critics said.” These were sent to newspapers in Bangui, which published them for payment. Each participating journalist received 10,000 francs (15 euros) per article.⁴

The Russian handler was later identified as Mikhail Prudnikov, who appeared in Prigozhin’s internal documents as “chief media manager.” Prudnikov worked for Africa Politology, an organization now under US sanctions for “developing strategies and mechanisms to induce Western countries to withdraw their presence in Africa” and “undermining Western influence.”⁵

When Yalike-Ngonzo’s employers grew suspicious of his loyalty, Prudnikov arrived at his home armed, drove him to a forest 26 kilometers from Bangui, and threatened to kill him. Only after checking his phone and finding nothing compromising did they release him. He then fled the country.⁶

Cinema as Weapon

The information operation extended to cinema. In May 2021, over 10,000 people packed Bangui’s Barthelemy Boganda Stadium to watch “Tourist” – a Russian action film depicting Wagner mercenaries as heroes defending CAR from murderous rebels. The film was dubbed into Sango, the local language. According to Russian sources, up to 70,000 attended screenings.⁷

“Tourist” was financed by Prigozhin and featured Wagner equipment, vehicles, and personnel. The Times called it “a most eye-catching piece of propaganda.” CNN described it as “a lavish piece of Russian propaganda: glorifying the mission of so-called ‘military instructors’ in CAR.”⁸

The film’s tagline: “Americans say they fight for democracy… Russians fight for justice.”

Conspicuously absent was any mention of the human rights abuses documented by UN experts just weeks before the premiere. According to their March 2021 report, Russian mercenaries had committed “mass summary executions, arbitrary detentions, torture during interrogation, and the forced displacement of the civilian population” – approximately 240,000 people.⁹

The premiere was attended by Maxim Shugaley, a political strategist linked to Prigozhin who heads the Foundation for National Values Protection (FZNC). Shugaley had been imprisoned in Libya in 2019 for political meddling. His presence connected the film to Russia’s broader disinformation apparatus.

Extraction Economics

Russia’s investment in CAR was never charity. The payments came due in mining concessions.

Around the same time Wagner arrived in 2018, the CAR government granted gold and diamond mining licenses to Lobaye Invest SARLU, a Russian-owned company. The UN determined that Lobaye and Wagner are “interconnected.” Russian media linked Lobaye directly to Prigozhin.¹⁰

The prize asset is the Ndassima gold mine, located 440 kilometers east of Bangui. A Canadian company’s licenses for the mine were cancelled in 2019 and handed to a Malagasy company reportedly linked to Russian interests. The case is still in international arbitration. According to the US Treasury Department, Ndassima’s gold proceeds are valued at over $1 billion.¹¹

“Authorities have no right of inspection,” Jean-Fernand Koena, who heads a union of CAR’s journalists, told CNN. Wagner has “total control” of the mine. The government cannot monitor “where the gold that they mine goes.” There is “neither public accounting nor information from the ministry of mines.”¹²

CBS News investigations tracked how the extraction works. A cargo plane flies regularly between Moscow and Bangui. Wagner controls the airport and staff. The plane went dark over Africa – deliberately turning off its transponder – before reappearing in the United Arab Emirates, where it overlapped for eight hours with another plane from Moscow. Plenty of time to transfer cargo in a country with minimal customs oversight.¹³

CAR has one of the world’s poorest populations – nearly 70% live in extreme poverty, the fifth highest rate globally – despite being rich in diamonds, gold, oil, and uranium.

The Reluctant Transition

After Prigozhin’s death in August 2023, Russia moved to consolidate its African operations under the state-controlled Africa Corps. In Mali, the transition was completed by June 2025. In CAR, it has stalled.

In August 2025, Russian Deputy Defense Minister made demands during visits to Bangui: replace Wagner with Africa Corps and pay cash for services. CAR’s government has been reluctant to agree. According to officials who spoke to AP, they believe Wagner would be more effective than the ministry-controlled alternative.¹⁴

Wagner has “connections with the officers, are feared operationally and have the resources,” one CAR military official explained. The personal relationships built over seven years cannot be easily transferred to a bureaucratic structure.¹⁵

This reluctance reveals something important about Russia’s model. Prigozhin’s network succeeded precisely because it operated in grey zones – offering flexibility, deniability, and personal relationships that state structures cannot replicate. The transition to Africa Corps may formalize Russian presence but risks losing what made the model effective.

The Capture Complete

By late 2024, Russia’s integration into CAR’s state apparatus was nearly complete. President Touadera appointed Wagner commander Dmitry Podolsky as his security advisor in September 2024. Regular phone calls connect Touadera directly to Putin. At the Prigozhin statue unveiling, CAR’s Communications Minister told CNN the monuments were “inaugurated as part of the cooperation between our country and Russia.”¹⁶

The French, who deployed to CAR after the 2013 coup, withdrew over what they called “massive disinformation campaigns” targeting France. Radio France International and other critical media are banned. The information space belongs to Russia.

And the statues keep rising. Two now honor Russian mercenaries in Bangui – one depicting protectors of women and children, another immortalizing a man credibly accused of ordering war crimes across multiple continents. Both stand as monuments to a model of influence that requires no consent from the governed.

Sources

Additional Reading

• Meduza, “‘We fight for justice’ – Russian mogul bankrolls action movie about his mercenary troops in Africa”, May 2021
• DFRLab, “First Russian mercenary statue in Africa identified in the Central African Republic”, November 2021
• Africa Defense Forum, “CAR at Center of Russian Disinformation Effort”, March 2022