A friend recently told me that the Russian private military company known as Wagner was not involved in Libya’s civil war. Opposed rebel forces, funded by the United Arab Emirates, said in December that 600-800 Wagner troops were fighting in Libya
They say the Russian fighters are backing renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar, whose forces have been trying for months to capture the capital, Tripoli, where the UN-recognised Government of National Accord is based. The GNA has documented between 600 and 800 Russian mercenaries in Libya and is collecting their names on a list to present to the Russian government, according to Khaled al-Meshri, head of the GNA’s Supreme Council of State. “We are going to visit Russia after we collect all evidence a
Source: Libyan officials cite evidence of Russian mercenaries in war | Russia News | Al Jazeera
Wagner is controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman who is close to President Putin. Prigozhin also controls the Internet Research Association (IRA) which conducted a large scale social media operation during the 2016 presidential election, deploying more than 3,000 Twitter accounts. This intervention probably did not change the election results but itwas not for lack of tryin.
