Since its war in Ukraine, bourgeois media have increasingly reported on how Russian imperialism is doing its evil in other semi-colonies as well. Never looking so closely in their own stables, they reveal much about imperialist oppression in general with unusual critical journalism. For the goals, justifications and methods of which Russia is convicted are the same ones according to which "foreign policy" is made in North America or Europe.
"They are Putin's wild cards on the geopolitical battlefield, propping up regimes, securing mineral resources and waging a war against the West," begins a documentary about the Russian "mercenaries" of the Wagner Group in the Central African Republic. Yet they are not mercenaries in the classical sense, selling themselves to the highest bidder. The Wagner Group exists only through and for Russian imperialism. They perform executioner work for him on the front line without formally acting on his direct behalf. As a company they are officially not subordinated to the Russian state, but to the "oligarch" Yevgeny Prigozhin. This trick is known from the US mercenary group Blackwater (today "Academi"), to which, for example, some occupation tasks and war crimes in Iraq were outsourced.
The actions of Russia and its mercenaries in the African country are facilitated by the fact that they can rely on some useful idiots of the ruling class there. These bring the foreign troops and money into the country as a power base to maintain or expand their political positions. In the concrete case, the Wagner people themselves provide immediate presidential guards. In return, the lackeys provide Russian corporations with licenses to plunder the country's mineral resources. Prigozhin and other Russian capitalists are said to have received diamond and gold mines as thanks. Among them is the country's largest gold mine, worth $2 billion.
This is a procedure known to all imperialists. Specifically, French imperialism had and has strong positions in this part of Africa. Thus, in reports of this kind, alleged oppositionists within bureaucratic capitalism regularly speak out, who want to solve the problem of Russian imperialism in their country by increasing its dependence on France. Besides economic exploitation, French imperialism is also known for the rape of children in the country. What was just presented to us as oppression is a good thing if the right person does it - what Jupiter is allowed to do, the ox is not allowed to do. These politicians do not want to liberate their country from imperialism, but only compete for a share of the spoils.
