When he presents himself to the editorial office of Mondeon September 30, Ephrem Yalike Ngonzo seems consumed by anxiety. His gaze shifting, he searches for words, his expression is jerky. This 29-year-old Central African journalist has been waiting for months to ease his conscience. “I contributed to keeping my country in chaoshe whispers. Today, I want to denounce everything to repair, to free myself from my shame and my regrets. »
To come to Paris, this good-natured man had to flee the Central African Republic and death threats from the Russian private military company Wagner, now omnipotent in Bangui. Ephrem Ngonzo is well placed to measure this power, he who was, for two and a half years, between 2019 and 2022, in charge of relations between the mercenaries and the local press. In other words, by his own admission, the man of the ” disinformation ” and “hateful messages”.
It took him a year and a half to escape the system of which he had, in a way, become a prisoner. He finally achieved this with the help of the African Whistleblower Protection Platform. For eight months, The World and its international partners, coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a network of investigative journalists created in 2017 to continue the work of silenced reporters, investigated the story of this particular type of “repentant” and, through she, on Wagner’s maneuvers in the Central African Republic, a country which was the laboratory of the group’s influence techniques on the African continent.
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Ephrem Ngonzo’s life changed one morning in November 2019. At the time, he was the very young editor-in-chief of Central African potentiala popular online media outlet in the country, when his phone rings. His interlocutor presents himself as a member of the “Russian mission in the Central African Republic”, the name behind which Wagner has concealed his communication activities since the arrival of the first mercenaries in 2018.
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Appointment is made for the afternoon. In a cafe in Bangui, Ephrem Ngonzo discovers a slightly overweight Russian, wearing a cap. This stranger introduces himself under the nickname “Micha” – there is no question of him revealing his identity. The journalist finds it “very nervous”. He wears a pistol on his belt. His proposal? A secret collaboration.
This “Micha” so concerned about his anonymity, The World and his partners are now able to reveal his name: Mikhail Mikhailovich Prudnikov. First involved in Nachi, a pro-Putin youth movement, this 37-year-old man is one of the leaders in the Central African Republic of Africa Politology, one of the main components of Wagner’s disinformation network on the continent.
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