Wagner in Africa: Precarious future after Prigozhin's reported death

Cradling a rifle, dressed in a military uniform and with a desert in the background, Yevgeny Prigozhin had a message for Africa.

His Wagner group of mercenaries was "making Russia even greater on every continent - and Africa even more free". "Justice and happiness for the African nations," he declared.

The video, thought to be recorded in Mali, was released on Monday. Two days later, the Wagner leader was reported to have died in a plane crash in Russia.

What now for his purported mission in Africa?

Wagner has been active in several countries on the continent - most notably the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali. But for many African governments, Prigozhin's announced death is a relief.

I would argue that his operatives did not spread freedom, and foreign mercenaries are an embarrassment for many states - Prigozhin was a reminder of a painful past.

At the height of the Cold War, and especially shortly after independence on the continent, mercenaries were regularly used to influence the civil wars and violence that followed.

Col Callan in Angola; Bob Denard in Congo's Katanga and later the Comoros; "Mad" Mike Hoare in Katanga and later the Seychelles; American Robert Mackenzie in Sierra Leone and British Simon Mann's failed "organised regime change" mission in Equatorial Guinea in 2004: all these are uncomfortable history.

When I discussed Prigozhin with Russian African analysts in Moscow in late 2019, they reminded me that for them, he was less of the above, but more akin to the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, who was out to make a fortune, and that I should not be judgmental, given the UK's history.