Wagner on list

The Biden administration has placed a well-known Russian paramilitary organisation on a list of religious freedom violators alongside a number of notorious terrorist organisations. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced he had designated the Wagner Group as an “entity of particular concern” for its activities in the Central African Republic. Also on the list are Afghanistan’s Taliban, Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Somalia’s al-Shabab and two factions of Isis. The Wagner Group is run by a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and its mercenaries are accused by Western countries and UN experts of numerous human rights abuses throughout Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali.The designation does not immediately carry US sanctions but opens up those targeted to potential penalties for violations of religious freedom.