Sudan’s foreign ministry denies presence of Russian Wagner Group
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s overseas ministry on Tuesday denied the presence of Russian personal army contractor Wagner Group within the nation, in response to a press release by Western diplomats.
Representatives of the USA, United Kingdom and Norway wrote in a bit revealed in a Sudanese newspaper on Monday that the mercenary group with ties to Moscow “spreads disinformation on social media and engages in illicit actions linked to gold mining.”
The Sudanese assertion comes after one in all Sudan’s army leaders paid a high-profile go to to Russia on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sudan’s overseas ministry accused the diplomats of attempting to intrude in Sudanese affairs and of dragging the nation “arbitrarily” into the Ukraine battle.
“They alleged that the Russian Wagner safety firm was current in Sudan and finishing up coaching, mining, and different unlawful actions… which the federal government of Sudan denies fully,” the assertion stated.
Wagner Group has been tied by U.S. authorities to Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who denies hyperlinks to the corporate.
In 2020, the USA sanctioned M Make investments and its subsidiary Meroe Gold which it stated had been managed by Prigozhin and working in Sudan.
A U.S. Treasury announcement on the time alleged that M Make investments was a canopy for Wagner forces within the nation, helped develop plans to suppress protesters together with by social media disinformation, and was awarded gold concessions.
In December 2020 and Could 2021, Fb took down accounts it linked to the formally defunct Web Analysis Company, additionally linked by U.S. authorities to Prigozhin, that researchers say unfold content material supportive of Common Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, chief of the paramilitary Fast Assist Forces.
Dagalo, who helped lead an October coup that ended a civilian-military power-sharing association, met high-level Russian officers in Moscow on a visit that started on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine.
The next week, he stated that Sudan was open to an settlement on a naval base with Russia or some other nation.
(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz in Khartoum and Nafisa Eltahir in Sudan, Enhancing by William Maclean)
