The Central African Republic (CAR) has grappled with profound instability since at least 2004, beginning with a three-year civil war that engulfed the nation, followed by continuous battles against insurgent groups. In a bid to restore order, the government extended an invitation to Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group in early 2018, initially for training purposes.
By 2019, the Wagner Group had expanded its presence to over 1,000 operatives in the Central African Republic. These mercenaries became deeply embedded within the country’s political, economic, and social structures, primarily targeting the extraction of gold, diamonds, and timber resources. This integration ultimately led to the emergence of a conflict economy, where these mercenaries and other factions actively exploit the nation’s persistent chaos for their own gain.
Wagner’s strategy involved not only forcibly infiltrating local markets through intimidation but also securing a significant foothold within President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s government. This was exemplified by the appointment of a Russian national as a senior security advisor, as documented by Christopher Faulkner and Raphael Parens for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.
In 2021, Wagner and government forces launched a nationwide military offensive. While ostensibly a stabilization campaign, this operation evolved from counter-insurgency efforts into a broader process of territorial, political, and economic consolidation, according to a June 2026 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).
Presently, the combined forces of the government and Wagner have successfully reconfigured the economy. What once sustained rebel groups now operates through networks designed to reinforce the Touadéra government and funnel wealth back to Russia.
Local elites, in collaboration with their foreign security partners, allied armed groups, and various economic actors, have utilized coercion and organized crime to solidify their power, control valuable resources, and advance their financial interests. This transformation has turned the Central African Republic into a platform for powerful transnational criminal networks, as detailed in the GI-TOC report titled “Criminal Markets: Mapping the Violent Criminal Ecosystem in the Central African Republic,” authored by Nathalia Dukhan and Ruben de Koning. Other nations, including the United Arab Emirates, Rwanda, and Turkey, also exert influence within the CAR.
The involvement of Russian mercenaries is unequivocally transactional. Their expanding presence aims to integrate security, economic, and political control over natural resources, all with the strategic objective of ensuring Russia’s long-term influence, as outlined in the 72-page report.
The report’s authors state that with Russian backing, President Touadéra has consolidated his political authority. Concurrently, Wagner-linked actors and their allies have become deeply integrated into key ministries, security agencies, customs administration, and the strategic resource sector. Rather than fostering stability, this collaboration between Bangui and Moscow has instead deepened and systematized patterns of coercion, extraction, and predation.
Governmental successes against armed groups have not eliminated the “rapacity of conflict” within the mining, trade route, and taxation sectors. Instead, this exploitation has been redirected to benefit “government-linked actors and networks and individuals within the government, who profit from these diverse sectors,” Ruben de Koning explained to Africa Report magazine.
Specifically, Russia has significantly benefited from the gold and fuel trade in the Central African Republic. Wagner has established an “illicit fuel supply chain” to finance its joint military operations with the government and its extensive mining activities, according to GI-TOC.
Ruben de Koning conveyed his surprise to Africa Report regarding the sheer scale of Wagner’s involvement in the CAR’s gold trade, stating, “What shocked me was in particular the mass and the blatant volume of gold that has been mined in the country.” He further noted that Wagner-controlled interests are estimated to produce approximately 5 tons of gold annually.
This volume of gold holds an export value of around $250 million, yet on the international market, its value could easily reach $500 million.
GI-TOC reports that beginning in 2021, Russian and Rwandan forces successfully reclaimed key mining regions across the country, effectively preventing armed groups from controlling these territories. Consequently, a greater volume of artisanal gold began to be exported through official channels. In 2023, gold exports reached 1.7 tons. While exports were anticipated to total approximately 2.5 tons by 2025, year-end figures astonishingly reached 7 tons.
This figure “far exceeds the capacity of artisanal production, so it must include industrial gold, most likely from Wagner concessions,” Ruben de Koning clarified to Africa Report.
While the security agreement between Russia and the Central African Republic may be somewhat unique on the continent, Russia’s broader ambition to seize resources from African nations, particularly gold, is not. Russian forces acquired over $2.5 billion worth of African gold between February 2022, marking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the close of 2023, according to the Blood Gold Report.
Russian gold extraction efforts are primarily concentrated in the Central African Republic, Mali, and Sudan. Wagner has secured exclusive rights to the Ndassima mine, the largest in the CAR, while Russia controls a major refinery and acts as the “primary buyer of unprocessed Sudanese gold” in Sudan. In Mali, Russian mercenaries reportedly receive millions of dollars in cash each month from the ruling junta, which heavily relies on gold mining for the majority of its tax revenues. This arrangement, the report indicates, circumvents sanctions through “complex smuggling routes and commercial concealment tactics” employed in the Central African Republic and Sudan.