Wagner Group May Have Lost Mythic Appeal in Africa

A top adviser to the president of the Central African Republic said on Friday that Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, had visited the country days before the plane he was believed to be traveling on crashed in Russia.

“He came here to galvanize his troops and then went elsewhere in Africa,” said Fidèle Gouandjika, the adviser to President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who in recent years has welcomed Wagner mercenaries to fight rebel groups in exchange for mining concessions.

Mr. Prigozhin’s presumed death could have profound consequences for African client states and warlords who, in the span of a few years, helped turn a mercenary enterprise into one of Russia’s most powerful and recognizable assets on the continent.

In countries such as the Central African Republic and Mali, Wagner operatives have provided security to autocratic leaders seeking to stay in power, as well as soldiers to help underequipped national armies fight rebels and extremist groups. In others, including Libya and Sudan, they have supplied warlords with weapons and training to mount challenges to fragile governments.

In return, Wagner’s African clients supplied it with cash, along with gold and diamond mining concessions. And Wagner’s thousands of operatives and dozens of shell companies were also involved in other industries, including timber, beer and vodka, logistics and entertainment.

The future of this business empire now appears uncertain, with its most recognizable figure believed to be dead.

“He was a talented person, a talented businessman. He worked not only here in our country, and got results, but also abroad, in particular in Africa,” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Thursday about Mr. Prigozhin. “There he was engaged with oil, gas, precious metals and stones. Just yesterday, as far as I understand, he returned from Africa and met here with a few officials.”

The last known images of Mr. Prigozhin, in a video he released earlier this week, appear to have been shot somewhere in Africa. Many analysts suggested it was in Mali, where around 1,500 Wagner mercenaries have been deployed.

In a sign of the aura the group has cultivated on the continent, Russian flags have appeared at protests in some West and Central African cities in recent years, along with the logo of the Wagner group and posters of Mr. Prigozhin. Its prominence has grown even as its mercenaries have been accused of widespread human rights abuses including executions, rape and torture.

Since Mr. Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny two months ago against the Russian military leadership, the Kremlin has tried to assure African clients that it was in control.

John Lechner, an independent researcher writing a book on the Wagner group, said little would likely change in the short term for the group’s activities in Africa. For Wagner’s contractors, it might be business as usual as long as they keep being paid, he said. But he added that with Mr. Prigozhin’s presumed death, the group “might go on in a much less charismatic way.”

Over time, other private military companies more closely affiliated with the Russian government could seek to recruit Wagner mercenaries, Mr. Lechner and others argued.

“The Wagner group is a tool in Putin’s tool kit that he won’t want to give up just because Prigozhin and the leadership of the Wagner group are gone,” said Cameron Hudson, a former C.I.A. analyst who is now an Africa specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Still, Russia may struggle to replace its most prominent figure on the continent, Mr. Hudson said, because of what he called Mr. Prigozhin’s “star personality, this mythic appeal in many parts of Africa.”

Mr. Gouandjika, the Central African presidential adviser, called Mr. Prigozhin a national hero who had saved the country. He posed wearing a Wagner T-shirt this week in a tribute to the group’s leader and said in a telephone interview on Friday that he was grieving — but that the partnership with Russia would continue.

“There will be another Prigozhin,” he said. “We’re awaiting the next one.”