Thread by @jacklosh

For those new to Prigozhin in the last 48 hours, it's worth knowing just how heinous his Wagner mercenaries are.

They've committed atrocities and human-rights violations far beyond Ukraine. Their abuses in the Central African Republic have been particularly bad. A quick thread:

Massacres, executions, rape, torture, abductions, violent intimidation... Prigozhin's paramilitaries have committed the worst violations there with impunity, all while shoring up the increasingly authoritarian rule of CAR's President Touadera

They've been given control over CAR's gem mines and even logging concessions in the country's south-western rainforest.

Not great from an environmental perspective - and a deal that has raised the threat of 'blood timber' entering the EU from this sanctioned militant group

Something else I've written about is Wagner's use of black sites where they would imprison people in deep holes dug into the earth, rarely providing food & water and leaving detainees exposed to blistering heat or torrential rain with no access to toilets foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/21/in-…

Anyone suspected of rebel sympathies would be detained in these squalid pits, but really this was just pure extortion, with release only granted when a relative paid hundreds of dollars - a huge sum in what is one of the poorest countries in the world

At the time, a UN source told me: “Everyone came into contact with the rebels when they were here, so, in the Russians’ eyes, anyone is a suspect...

"People thought life couldn’t get any worse. But it’s got worse.”

For that, Prigozhin bears responsibility.