Since the start of the war in Sudan between government troops and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the role of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, said to have links to the paramilitary forces, has remained unclear. Against this backdrop, social media users shared a video which they claimed shows Wagner soldiers surrendering to the Sudanese army. But the video was actually filmed during the evacuation of Russian embassy staff from Sudan by regular Russian troops at the start of the conflict in the spring of 2023.
If you only have a minute:
- A video of a military convoy is being shared with captions suggesting the Wagner militia in Sudan has "surrendered" to the Sudanese armed forces.
- We were able to geolocate the video to Khartoum, Sudan.
- Our team compared it with images taken during the evacuation of Russian diplomats from Sudan in May. We determined that one of the vehicles in the viral video is the same as one of the vehicles used during the evacuation, which allows us to conclude that the video was filmed during the evacuation of diplomatic staff from the Russian embassy on May 2nd, 2023.
- The Wagner Group is said to have links to General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, whose RSF forces have been fighting the government since April.
The fact-check in detail:
A video was posted on Twitter on July 16 (archive here) with a caption claiming it shows soldiers employed by the paramilitary Wagner Group, dedicated to defending Russia’s foreign interests, talking with government forces in Sudan.
A man in uniform can be seen taking a video of himself next to a man speaking Russian on the phone.
Behind them is a white car, followed by at least four military vehicles marked with a "Z", a symbol painted on Russian military equipment involved in the war in Ukraine. The video garnered more than 86,000 views.
Posts shared the same day in English and Arabic on Facebook claimed that the video showed Wagner mercenaries surrendering to Sudanese troops. They garnered more than 11,000 views.
Wagner is said to have links with the RSF of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as Hemedti. But since the RSF have been fighting the regular Sudanese army, Wagner's role and position is unclear in Sudan. Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who moved the group’s base to Belarus after a short-lived rebellion against Russian president Vladimir Putin in June, has said there are no Wagner personnel on the ground in Sudan.
A video taken in Khartoum
Some elements of the video raise doubts. The letter “Z” is painted on the vehicles. This symbol is often used by the regular Russian army since the start of the war in Ukraine, but rarely by Wagner's mercenaries in Africa.
Sam Doak, a journalist at the British fact-checking outlet Logically Facts, was able to identify the location where the video was taken.
In the footage, a blue petrol station can be seen in the background. If you search for petrol stations in Sudan, you can see that the brand Oil Libya matches this colour.
By searching for the petrol station in Khartoum, the city where the scene could have been filmed according to comments from Twitter users, we can find the exact location where the video was taken.
This is a petrol station in Khartoum North. Although there is no street-level view of the street on Google Maps, the aerial view shows the petrol station, the billboard and the large white building behind the station.
Video shows Russian embassy staff being evacuated in May
Was this video taken recently? In the comments, people suggested that the video could have been filmed when the Russian army evacuated civilians from Sudan at the start of the fighting.
Our team searched for images on the Telegram channel of the Russian embassy in Sudan, and found a May 2 image of the white van that appears on the viral video. It is exactly the same white Toyota HiAce, with the same green and brown luggage mounted on the roof and wrapped in netting, alongside a Russian flag.
This photo was taken during the evacuation of a part of the Russian embassy staff on the morning of May, 2nd 2023, according to the Russian authorities.
A search for other images of the evacuation shows a photo of a military vehicle belonging to the Russian military convoy. It was shared by a pro-Russian account at the time of the evacuation.
This vehicle looks very similar to another car seen in the viral video. The number plate is similar, albeit with a one-digit difference, and both vehicles have luggage and a Russian flag on the roof.
A press release issued by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained that the embassy staff were evacuated on May 2 in a convoy that took them to the Al-Shahid Mukhtar air base in the town of Omdurman, near Khartoum, before flying to Moscow.
Amateur videos appear to show the convoy en route.
More than 200 people, including Russian embassy staff, representatives of the Ministry of Defence, Russian citizens and citizens of other countries allied with Russia were reportedly evacuated on the same day by the Russian armed forces.
Wagner's role in Sudan still unclear
The Wagner Group forged a partnership in 2018 with then-President Omar al-Bashir to illegally exploit the country's gold resources, as an investigation by an international consortium of journalists has documented.
At the same time, the Russian militia developed relations with General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, also known as Hemedti, and his paramilitary group RSF. Allies of al-Bashir before his ouster in 2019, Daglo and his RSF joined the rebellion against him and later took up arms against government forces in April 2023.
An investigation by the open-source investigative organisation All Eyes on Wagner and CNN in April 2023 suggests that Wagner supplied missiles to the RSF to support their fight against the Sudanese army.
All Eyes on Wagner has also developed an interactive map listing the Russian militia's activities and human rights abuses around the world.
