Jack Margolin Profile picture
Jan 24 9 tweets 5 min read Read on X
In an odd twist, the Russian IL-76 RA-78830, originally reported as the one shot down over Belgorod, was in fact en route to Syria and *possibly* the aircraft carrying Russian fighters for ‘Africa Corps’ to Burkina Faso.


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Caveats here:

- receiver limitations means we can’t see see an IL-76 making the trip all the way to Ouagadougou, have to make inferences
- Africa Initiative, ru propaganda outlet claims that “Africa Corps” arrived with 100 personnel, arms, and vehicles in Burkina at 2 PM.
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- Africa Initiative posted early photos of the aircraft loading in Ru. These images could be Chkalovsky, but unconfirmed

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- more recent photos claiming to show this airframe show a different livery, but not possible to verify this is the same aircraft (cc @vcdgf555)
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@vcdgf555 Evidence for:
- this is a 223rd Flight Unit plane (and sanctioned!), which has regularly serviced Wagner/Ru forces in African
- it previously (maybe still) has a livery consistent with the Africa Initiative images. They got wise to blurring tail numbers. Image
@vcdgf555 - this aircraft would have landed in Syria (most likely) after 7:10 UTC
- while we can’t see it depart (sometimes but not always, Russian planes leaving Syria for Africa getting picked up in Cyprus FIR) this timing would allow it to make it to Ouagadougou on timeline reported
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@vcdgf555 So to summarize - this is possibly but by no means certainly a plane that played a role in transfer of ‘Africa Corps’ (more formally MoD Wagner successor) personnel into Africa.
@vcdgf555 There are other interesting Ru govt IL76 flights in Africa today, but their timelines and livery don’t match. See for example RA-76841, an MChS (EMERCOM) plane that flew into Egypt later on, before departing for unknown location.

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@vcdgf555 Spotted in sat imagery by @COUPSURE

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More from @Jack_Mrgln

May 30
One of my major questions after Prigozhin’s death was where Wagner’s most experienced and influential fighting men, its commanders, would go. With recent news, we largely have the answer. ridl.io/the-new-russia…
Commander of 3rd Assault Detachment Boris Nizhevenok has gone the Rosgvardiya / volunteer detachment route. This pathway is a successful compromise in bringing Wagner’s human capital under the State while allowing them to avoid submitting to MoD.
Anton “Lotus” Elizarov chose a similar route under Rosgvardiya, with mixed success in recruiting for Ukraine. He is cited by Wagner figures as still having a major role in the subsumed Africa operations (under MoD and security services other than Rosgvardiya)
Read 8 tweets
Jan 12
This week marks a year since Wagner took Soledar in a bloody, protracted battle that has become one of the more important moments in the collective mythology of Russian PMCs. Brief thread on Soledar and some of the commanders involved.

1/
Like in Bakhmut to the south, Soledar was a grinding battle of artillery and urban combat, and a flashpoint in tensions between Wagner and the MoD, with both claiming to captured the town in January of 2023. Soledar was obliterated in the process.

2/

rferl.org/a/russian-forc…
Prigozhin and the broader Wagner info community recognized Anton 'Lotos' Elizarov as the commander of Wagner forces at Soledar. Elizarov was increasingly presented as a mouthpiece for Wagner in this period. He survived the mutiny and Prigozhin's death.

3/ Image
Read 11 tweets
Sep 30, 2023
More videos of Prigozhin’s last trip to Africa, where he travels with Utkin. They visit the CAR and meet people like Dmitri Sytiy, Zombie, travel to Mali to meet Lotus. Prigozhin personally hands out aid to locals.
Here he travels through the CAR, taking with Boris “Zombie” Nizhevenok, an assault detachment command, and meets with local partners.
He flies to Mali, where he meets with Anton “Lotus” Elizarov, who led the assault of Soledar. He is rumored to be “Utkin’s deputy,” responsible for resolving Wagner’s future after Prigozhin died, but there is little hard evidence.
Read 5 tweets
Aug 25, 2023
The plane that Prigozhin died aboard, RA-02795, has a remarkable story.

1/ Image
Many Russia watchers know it better as M-SAAN, which carried Russian military officials including the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Igor Osipov, to Sudan a week after the revolution that toppled Bashir



2/occrp.org/en/investigati…
It also ferried the Deputy Commander of the RSF and the Deputy Minister of Defense of Sudan to Russia according to an investigation by @OCCRP and @novaya_gazeta. Other passengers were Sudan's UN ambassador, Pavel Prigozhin, Wagner fighters.



3/novayagazeta.ru/articles/2019/…
Read 7 tweets
Aug 24, 2023
I started working on Russian illicit networks in 2014, PMCs in 2016. Wagner played a central role in that work, which has meant about 5-6 years of following Prigozhin and Utkin. The world is better place without them, Wagner will change fundamentally, but PMCs aren’t going away.
Wagner fought alongside other Russian “PMCs” in Ukraine and Syria. They fought alongside Sudanese, Syrian mercenaries in Libya, at the same time as an American PMC tried to close a deal with their client, Haftar. They were pushed out of Mozambique by SA PMCs.
Wagner is pretty distinct from most PMCs on the global market (analogies are helpful but only go so far) but it is a signal of the trends in how authoritarian states will leverage semi-private enterprise to achieve their ends, especially where crime or violence are involved
Read 4 tweets
Jul 9, 2023
Some considerations that I haven’t seen discussed in as much detail that are important for the “future of Wagner” conjecture, and what it means for Russian operations in Ukraine, Syria, Africa.

1/
A) do commanders of assault detachments and platoons stay, with or without Prigozhin? This is the core of the human capital of Wagner, a major pillar of competency and identity.

2/
(Also important for relationships with local forces and interlocutors in places like the CAR or Mali)

2.5/
Read 15 tweets

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