The CAR was the last country to give up Wagner, and the switch to Africa Corps changed less than the new patches suggest. Also here: why Touadéra held on, who pays the bill, and the tramadol, gold and fuel networks that survived.
Wagner in the CAR held out longer than anywhere else in Africa. This report, dated July 24, 2026, explains why the Central African Republic was the last country to give up the Wagner model, how the switch to Africa Corps was finally made, and what is left of Wagner now that the skull patches have been replaced with the Russian flag.
How the switch was made
The report sets out the timeline, from Touadéra’s visit to Putin in January 2025 and an announcement held back until after the December 2025 election, to Defense Minister Belousov’s discreet arrival in Bangui in March 2026 and the inauguration at which the president’s guards appeared under the new insignia.
Why Wagner in the CAR lasted so long
By my assessment, three reasons converged here. The first is trust. Touadéra’s inner circle trusts specific Wagner men, above all Dmitry Syty (a former Prigozhin associate who spent some nine years building a personal relationship with the president) and Dmitry Podolsky, nicknamed “Salem.” These figures accumulated detailed knowledge of local actors and rebel leaders that would be lost with their departure. The second is political balance. Replacing the “private operators” with a formal Russian state — effectively foreign — unit threatened to upset the fragile construct holding the regime together, and some in Touadéra’s circle even feared it could lead to his overthrow.
Sergey Konyashin, The Central African Republic: The Last Bastion and What Is Left of It (Africa Now, Démarche, July 24, 2026)
The third reason, which the author calls decisive, is money. The report puts a figure on what Africa Corps costs Bangui and describes how the bill was finally settled.
What is left
The combat and command component has passed to the state. What remains of Wagner in the CAR are its criminal-economic networks. Drawing on The Wall Street Journal and a June 2026 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the report follows the tramadol trade up the Ubangi River, the gold mines and the fuel monopoly, and the role of Prigozhin’s son, Pavel. It adds evidence from the author’s own archive: overflight clearances processed at the embassy in Khartoum showing a direct military air bridge from Khmeimim to Bangui as early as January 2018.
The conclusion is that the CAR is the clearest case of selective absorption, and the model Moscow will judge its new approach by.