In 2019, a Russian foreign-policy hand told me that his country had intervened in Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad for reasons that were, he said, “pedagogical.” Putin had watched the Bush and Obama administrations insert themselves into Iraq, Libya, and Syria, leaving messes in each. Now he would teach America how to intervene right: swiftly, decisively, and without sermonizing about “democracy,” “human rights,” and suchlike twaddle. The chief instructor in this master class would be Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s cook”—not for some cool James Bond–like reason, such as a preference for sharp throwing knives or an ability to make a mean polonium soufflé, but because before Prigozhin headed Putin’s paramilitary Wagner Group, he ran an actual catering business.

Prigozhin appears to have been fired from that teaching job. Yesterday his private jet went down north of Moscow, and Russian authorities assure us that Prigozhin was on it. That he was still available to die under these circumstances was a minor miracle of survival: In June, he led the most significant coup attempt against a Russian leader since the end of the Cold War. It was generally assumed that Putin would kill him. Instead Prigozhin remained alive and unpoisoned—and, most amazing, still active in the Wagner Group’s core mercenary business in Africa.

Many who have been laid off from more banal jobs have experienced an unsettling moment, when they realize that the youngster whom management has sent to shadow them is in fact their replacement. I suspect that the past two months have been just such a period of managerial judo by Putin. Wagner has not been fighting much in Ukraine for months, but in Africa, its work has been an indispensable element of Russian policy. And Putin saw fit to keep this dead man walking, long enough to ensure that Wagner can continue its deals.

[Anne Applebaum: Prigozhin’s death heralds more spectacular violence]

In the days before his death, Prigozhin posted a video from what was likely Mali, one of the four countries where Wagner is a major player. In Libya, Prigozhin’s men have supported the warlord Khalifa Haftar, and in Sudan, they have buttressed the forces of government warlords and run mining and energy camps.

But Wagner’s main prize is the Central African Republic (CAR). Last month, when it seemed that Prigozhin had been sidelined, one of the first signs that he was not yet gulagged was his public appearance at the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. The gathering was intended to announce a whole series of Russian initiatives in Africa. A photograph showed Prigozhin shaking the hand of a senior aide to CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra. In CAR, the deal Wagner and Russia have offered is straightforward: We get your diamonds and other natural resources, and in return we will secure your rule by whatever violent means are necessary, using our mercenary army. CAR must fully enter the Russian orbit. Tell France (the country’s colonial patron) and the United States to pound sand. Vote as Russia suggests at the United Nations.

By now, Wagner reportedly has more than 1,000 soldiers in CAR. I reported there in the 2000s and early 2010s, before Wagner. The country is a “republic” in name, but only because there isn’t a word for a system of government based on a carousel of violent, pointless coups. The Wagner Group doesn’t care about Central Africans, but neither does anyone else who has intervened in or exploited the country. The place has been miserable for decades and was deteriorating before Wagner arrived.

Wagner has made the lives of Central Africans even worse in many ways, but it has also made CAR more stable. President Touadéra has been trying to extend his term in office, a move widely viewed as an attempt to appoint himself president for life. Russia and Wagner will be happy to have their compliant man in power. Wagner has its cut of the diamond business, and it is involved in other, smaller sectors that probably won’t do much to rescue CAR from its miseries. A Russian vodka is now sold in the country, Wa Na Wa. (Its label says “Made in the Central African Republic with Russian technology.” I recommend that you never drive, fly, eat, drink, inject, smoke, or sleep under anything matching this description.) Wagner mercenaries are alleged to have torched a rival French brewery in March. This sort of gangsterism characterized Russia in the ’90s. It has subsided in Russia. Now it is an export.

Russia is a poor country—not as poor as CAR or Sudan, but poor enough that it cannot hope to compete with Europe and America by leveraging its money or status. Prigozhin offered Putin a service that would allow Putin to dictate terms overseas and even develop a sphere of influence. The real puzzle in the life of Prigozhin, assuming it has ended, is why he thought he could develop a locus of power independent of Putin’s. The mercenary always loses power games like these, because any real success is its own guarantee of failure. If you succeed and get powerful, your boss ends your streak, to keep you from becoming a rival.

Putin appears to have let Prigozhin survive long enough to shake the hands of a few leaders, and tell them that the failed mutiny in Russia would not mean an end to Russia’s relationship with Africa. I wonder if the Kremlin assigned some new employee to shadow Prigozhin in those meetings, write down the password to Wagner’s Yahoo Mail account, and figure out how to get check-signing privileges from Olga in payroll. Yesterday, that youngster probably flew commercial.