A Chinese company sold two intelligence satellites to Wagner’s Russian mercenaries

The Russian paramilitary group Wagnerpreviously present in Ukraine and active in Africa, signed a contract with a Chinese company at the end of 2022 to acquire two observation and imaging satellites, which gives it unprecedented intelligence power, according to this document consulted by AFP.

“Tell me who has reconnaissance satellites in this country besides EPSD [Empresa Proveedora de Servicios de Defensa] Wagnerhis boss said ironically in April Evgeny Prigozhin on the Telegram messaging system, in reference to the limited space capabilities of the Russian regular army.

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At the end of a long investigation, the AFP managed to clarify the links between Wagner and the Chinese companies that provided satellite information to Russian mercenaries.

According to a European security source, some of these images even helped him prepare for his mutiny last June, the biggest threat Russian President Vladimir Putin has faced in two decades in power.

And that raises the question: what did he know? China of projects Wagner against your Russian ally?

According to a commercial contract written in English and Russian and signed on November 15, 2022, the company Beijing Yunze Technology Co. Ltd was sold for 235 million yuan (about 31 million dollars) to Nika-Frut, a company of the Prigozhin galaxy, two very high-resolution observation satellites (75 cm) belonging to the Chinese space giant Chang Guang Satellite Technology (CGST).

The agreement also provides for the provision of images of the CGST constellation upon request. According to the European security source, this allowed Wagner to obtain images of Ukraine and Africa (Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Mali…), where their mercenaries operate.

A riot in the making

The Russian company even ordered around 80 images of Russian territory at the end of May 2023, specifically of the route between the Ukrainian border and Moscow which the mercenaries took the following month during their brief mutiny, according to this source.

This mutiny thwarted in 24 hours consummated the final rupture between Putin and Prigozhin, weeks before his death.

AFP was unable to independently verify this information, which does not appear in the aforementioned contract.

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But this leak could explain why US intelligence services were aware that the head of Wagner was preparing a riot, as CNN revealed at the end of June. His French counterparts were also aware, according to the newspaper L’Opinion.

The group Wagner It is currently in a phase of reorganization, but much of its profitable activities abroad could remain under the aegis of other paramilitary groups or a new leadership controlled by Moscow.

According to information collected by AFP, the space contract remains valid and provides for the acquisition of two Chinese satellites, JL-1 GF03D 12 and JL-1 GF03D 13, in orbit at an altitude of 535 kilometers.

Through this contract, the customer also acquired rights to the remaining satellites in the constellation operated by the Chinese company CGSTwhich currently has one hundred and hopes to reach 300 by 2025.

The agreement states that after receiving each order from its customer, “the supplier will guide the satellites” based on the requested images, before these are sent to a ground station for processing and delivery.

“The client will download the image data from the cloud” and you can keep them for seven days.

The Nika-Frut and Beijing Yunze groups did not immediately respond to AFP’s questions.

Limited Russian capabilities

Why couldn’t the Russian military directly provide Wagner with these images?

“Russia does not have this type of capability. “Their satellite program has not been performing well recently.”Gregory Falco, researcher at American University Cornell, in New York, explains to AFP.

WagnerFor its part, it has sometimes demonstrated that it has an intelligence capacity superior to that of the Russian armed forces, adds the expert.

China’s provision of satellite images for the Wagner galaxy will not surprise the United States. The US Department of Commerce decided on February 24, 2023 to include Beijing Yunze Technology Co. Ltd and satellite imagery broker Head Aerospace Technology on its sanctions list.

“These companies contributed significantly” to help the Russian army in Ukraine It is “are engaged in activities contrary to the national security of the United States and [sus] interests”according to an official online document.

On April 12, 2023, Washington also sanctioned “80 entities and individuals who continue to make Russian aggression possible and easy”.

Among the first is Head Aerospace Technology, to distribute “satellite images of sites in Ukraine to companies affiliated with the EPSD Wagner already Evgeny Prigozhin”.

AFP was able to verify the identity of the contract signatory on the Russian side: Ivan Mechetin. According to various sources, this 40-year-old man is the general director of the company Nika-Frut, a subsidiary of the Concord group led by Prigozhin.

“Nika-Frut is registered as a company selling food products, but it does many other things. “It’s a known model in the Prigozhin galaxy.”explains Lou Osborn of the digital research NGO All Eyes on Wagner (AEOW).

According to investigations carried out with open access sources, Nika-Frut sent several orders of food to the Central African Republic in 2019 for the mining company Lobaye Invest.

This company is a historical subsidiary of the company M-Finans, which Prigozhin controlled in the past and which is linked to the Wagner group’s operations in this African country. Lobaye Invest has been subject to European sanctions since February.

According to AEOW, Mechetin also had a career in a military support unit that supplied weapons and ammunition to the GRU, Russian military intelligence, during the 2014 invasion of the Ukrainian peninsula. Crimea.

Beijing Yunze negotiates defense technologies on behalf of Beijing. The company Head Aerospace, in turn, has, according to several experts, a marketing agreement with the satellite manufacturer CGST.

CGST “It is the monster of Chinese space operations”, “They carried out a lot of industrial espionage”comments Gregory Falco, evoking the “spectacular” resolution capabilities of its satellites.

Their hundreds of satellites also allow them to pass the same point several times a day, which offers a very up-to-date level of information.

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What did Beijing know?

But one of the main questions is whether Beijing authorities knew that Wagner commissioned satellite images of Russian territory from late May, weeks before his mutiny against Putin.

According to the European security source, these images were of interest to the headquarters of Russian operations in Ukraine, in Rostov-on-Don, which Wagner took without a fight; to other cities on the way to Moscow, and to other places of military interest, such as Grozny, the stronghold of pro-Putin Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Did the highest echelons of Chinese power know that Wagner was requesting this sensitive information, when it was known that Prigozhin had bad relations with the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, and the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu?

China’s Foreign Ministry told AFP “not updated”.

“China has always been responsible with its exports and adopted prudent measures; strictly enforces national laws and regulations and respects its international obligations.”he added.

For a European expert in the space sector, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, it is “evident” that the highest Chinese authorities are informed of sensitive assignments. CGST.

“There is no doubt that it is sent directly” to Chinese central power, he estimates.

In theory, Chinese law confirms that such a contract cannot be carried out in secret. According to article 7 of the national intelligence law, enacted in 2017, “all organizations and citizens must support, assist and cooperate with the efforts of national intelligence services”.

But other experts are more cautious.

“The level of centralization China. Any operation can be the target of competition between directors, administrations, units of the same administration. This causes opacity, retention and even sabotage.”explains to AFP Paul Charon, specialist in China at the Military School Strategic Research Institute (IRSEM) in Paris.

Another hypothesis would be that the Chinese, like many others, “They didn’t understand what was happening in the weeks before the riot”. “The images requested about Russia They could also be related Ukraine, with the identification of flaws in the Russian device. “It is possible that the objectives behind the request were not questioned.”he adds.

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Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.