What the Services write about services of the Russian Wagner in Africa
Ministers Crosetto, Urso and Tajani trace the increase in migrant arrivals to a "hybrid warfare" operation by the Wagner group. Here's what the Secret Service writes
According to Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Business Minister Adolfo Urso, there is the possibility that the Wagner group, the theoretically private Russian company of mercenaries, may be behind the growth in the arrivals of migrants to Italy from North Africa but actually linked to the Kremlin.
THE STATEMENTS OF TAJANI AND CROSETTO ON RUSSIAN MERCENARIES
According to Tajani, “many migrants arrive from areas controlled by the Wagner group. I would not want”, he added , “there was an attempt to push migrants towards Italy”.
In a note sent to the news agencies on Monday, Crosetto declared that "the exponential increase in the migratory phenomenon that departs from the African coasts [is] also, to a not indifferent extent, part of a clear strategy of hybrid warfare that the Wagner division, mercenaries in the pay of Russia, is implementing, using its relevant weight in some African countries”.
"Uncontrolled and continuous immigration, added to the economic and social crisis, becomes a way to hit the most exposed countries, above all Italy, and their geostrategic choices, clear and sharp": the minister refers to the support given by the Draghi government first, and from Meloni now, to Ukraine, invaded by Russia on February 24, 2022.
URSO'S WORDS ON COPASIR'S WARNINGS
On Tuesday, Minister Urso spoke "of what Wagner has done in recent years in Africa, in Libya and in the Sahel, where there is the main source of illegal immigration" in Italy.
“The Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic”, better known as COPASIR , “which I have chaired in recent years, had already alarmed Parliament about this. For example in the 2021 report, where we highlighted how an encirclement of Europe by Russia was taking place […]. We clearly sketched what was happening in the Sahel”, in sub-Saharan Africa, “with a series of coups which then opened the doors to Wagner's mercenaries for control of the country and consequently control of the sources of immigration”.
WAGNER'S INSULTS AND URSO'S REPLY
Evgenij Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner group and very close to Russian president Vladimir Putin, denied the reconstructions of the Meloni government and called Crosetto "an asshole".
Despite the denial, according to Urso "the facts […] confirm" Wagner's interest in irregular migratory flows towards Italy and Europe. “Russia also denied it when it amassed hundreds of soldiers on the borders of Ukraine; he continually denied that he wanted to attack", recalled the minister, who then explained how COPASIR had "investigated" the role of Russian mercenaries in Africa, especially in Libya and in the Sahel.
WHAT THE SECRET SERVICES WRITE ABOUT WAGNER'S PRESENCE IN AFRICA
In the Annual Report on Information Security Policy for 2022, published last month by the Department of Information Security (DIS), the intelligence body that coordinates Italian information research, the military presence of the Wagner company was highlighted in Libya, Mali, Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mozambique.
DIS also wrote that the "redeployment of Task Force Takuba", operating in Mali and made up of European special forces under French leadership, could "create vacuum zones" that could be exploited by Russia through Wagner mercenaries.
THE LATEST INFORMATION FROM THE ITALIAN 007s
Today Repubblica summarized the contents of a report presented a few days ago to the government by the Italian secret services in which the role of the Wagner group is analyzed in the irregular migratory flows from North Africa.
Russian mercenaries control the ports of Cyrenaica (eastern Libya) and allow the departure of boats loaded with migrants. Today, however, Libya, between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania (the western region), represents the country of departure for only 30 percent of the people who land in Italy. While neighboring Tunisia – where the DIS did not report the presence of Russian mercenaries – is worth 60 percent.
Repubblica then writes that "the Libyan traffickers monitored the presence of NGO ships in the Mediterranean and communicated it to the migrants as an incentive and (false) guarantee that the crossing would be short and not very dangerous".
– Read also:NGOs are a logistical advantage for traffickers of men from Africa. Secret Service report
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/gruppo-wagner-migranti/ on Wed, 15 Mar 2023 14:42:31 +0000.