The Kremlin-backed mercenary Wagner Group, owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, reportedly supplies Sudan’s militia with air defense missiles.
Fierce clashes between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary, known as Rapid Support Forces or RSF, have erupted in recent weeks, raising fears of a wider conflict in the chaos-stricken nation.
On April 21, CNN reported that the Wagner group had supplied Sudan’s powerful paramilitary force with missiles to aid their fight against the country’s army.
According to the media report, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have received a batch of man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, to aid the militia’s coup attempt against the Sudanese Army along with Libyan putschist Haftar.
The Sudanese army said fighting broke out after RSF troops tried to attack its forces in the southern part of the capital. Later, the military declared the RSF a “rebel force”.
It is worth noting that the destabilization of the situation in the country is directly linked to the Kremlin through the influence of its Wagner Group. As early as 2019, Wagner units were spotted in the capital, Khartoum, conducting purges among civilians and were responsible for numerous war crimes.
Sudan has been marred in turmoil since October 2021, when a coup overthrew a Western-back government, dashing Sudanese aspirations for democratic rule after three decades of autocracy and repression under Islamist ruler Omar al-Bashir.