Parliamentary intelligence service
oversight commission COPASIR was already warning about Russian
mercenary group Wagner's support for North African coups driving
migrants to Italy two years ago, Business and Made in Italy
Minister Adolfo Urso said Tuesday, a day after Defence Minister
Guido Crosetto and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani warned of
Wagner's migrant-driving activities in several African nations.
"I'm surprised that some people are surprised by what Wagner is
doing in Africa since already two years ago (COPASIR) had
alerted parliament in official reports, after classified
fact-finding investigations on Russia's encircling action
towards Europe," Urso said at a Rome conference on Italy's soft
power.
The current migrant boom which is hitting Italy harder than
other countries is linked to pressure from the activity of
Russian-paid Wagner mercenaries in Africa, Crosetto and Tajani
said Monday.
Crosetto said the rise in migrant departures from Africa is at
least partially due to the "hybrid strategy" being employed by
the Wagner group in a number of African countries.
Wagner, which is best known at present for its role in Russia's
invasion of Ukraine, is also active in Mali, Central African
Republic, Sudan, Syria and Libya, where it backs Cyrenaica
strongman General Khalifa Haftar.
"It seems to me that by now it is safe to say that the
exponential increase in the migratory phenomenon from the
African coasts is also, to a not inconsiderable extent, part of
a clear strategy of hybrid warfare that the Wagner division,
mercenaries in the pay of Russia, is implementing, using its
considerable weight in some African countries", said Crosetto.
Tajani, for his part, speaking after talks with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, voiced "concern" about
the fact that "many migrants come from areas controlled by the
Wagner group. I would not like there to be an attempt to push
migrants towards Italy".
Premier Giorgia Meloni said it was not right to let the Russian
mercenary group run rampant in Africa, allegedly driving
migrants to try to reach Italy.
"Perhaps it would be easier to put our heads in the sand, to let
mafiosi decide who should come to us, to let only those who have
money to pay those mafiosi come to us, to let Wagner's
mercenaries and fundamentalists continue to take hold in
Africa," said Meloni at the presentation of a book on Pope
Francis.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin responded to Crosetto's claim
that the Russian mercenary group was driving migration from
several African countries to Italy by saying that the group did
not deal with migrants.
"Crosetto should look less in other directions and deal with his
problems, which he probably has not managed to solve. We are not
au fait with what is happening with the migratory crisis, we
don't deal with it, we have a heap of problems of our own to
cope with," he said.
Prigozhin called Crosetto a 'mudak', a Russian term literally
meaning testicle but used to mean d**khead or a**hole.
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