Confirmed: a contingent of #Russia|n Wagner mercenaries has reached Mali after landing east of Benghazi, Libya
It seems Libya has become the transit point for all Wagner operatives being deployed to sub Saharan Africa.
That even includes Syrian mercs brought by the #Russia|ns into CAR also via Libya.
There are continued calls and there has been international pressure for Wagner operatives to leave Libya. There are no indications they intend to, and it seems now they using Libya as their gateway to rest of Africa.
More details from Russian media: 19rus.info/index.php/mir-…
Reaction in Mauritania: President opposes Mali's decision to bring in Wagner PMCs actucameroun.com/2021/10/04/rec…
To clarify the language: there is no suggestion at all the contingent made it to Mali via land all the way from Benghazi. But they seem to have made a stop there before continuing the journey South/South West then further via planes/helicopters.
My colleague @barabanch in @bbcrussian reported last week that in fact Wagner PMCs have been in Mali since August, according to sources inside the group bbc.com/russian/featur…
In the pic on the left is Maxim Shuglai, the defacto Wagner media spin doctor who was caught in Tripoli on spying charges maliactu.net/mali-interview… 
More on Maxim Shuglai and the intel operation he was part of in Tripoli: washingtonpost.com/world/national…
He was released back to Russia in 2020 and was hailed domestically as a ‘national hero’ - even depicted in film productions aa.com.tr/en/europe/liby…
Maxim is accused by Tripoli security bodies of running influence operations/elections meddling in favour of Russia’s favourite Libyan: Seif al-Gaddafi
Next to Maxim in that Mali piece who is the main interviewee is Alexander Ivanov - little is known about him but some info here: rfi.fr/fr/afrique/202…
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