Behind the headlines: Mali, Russia and a Secret Army

Allegedly members of secretive Russian private military contractors company Wagner during their deployment to Syria (Photo: Wiki)

The Wagner Group is a notorious private military company from Russia. According to various reports, the Wagner Group is officially described as a private military company with the capacity to deploy thousands of private military contractors in combat zones. Here we see that the government in Mali – overthrown a few years ago by a coup – is now pushing off elections into the future. And why? Because Mali has a lot of gold, minerals and rare earth metals. In addition to gold, Mali has other mineral prospects as the majority of the territory remains largely unexplored and unmapped. The Ministry of Mines estimates Mali has 800 tons of gold deposits, 2 million tons of iron ore, 5,000 tons of uranium, 20 million tons of manganese, 4 million tons of lithium, and 10 million tons of limestone.

And who wants to beat China to control of scarce resources used in the production of nuclear power and weapons, electric vehicles and communications equipment? Vladimir Putin. The man who not just wants to be Russian leader but who has said he wants to become the New Peter the Great, Russia’s infamous Tsar.

Basically, it’s another coup.