Sunday News

Criminal tag looms for Wagner

- Washington Post

The United States will designate Russia’s Wagner mercenary group a ‘‘transnatio­nal criminal organisati­on,’’ the White House said yesterday, an attempt to disrupt the cash and weapons flow of a private military outfit prosecutin­g President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine with an army of convicts and contractor­s.

The designatio­n will come alongside additional US sanctions against Wagner and its support network, spanning multiple continents, said John Kirby, coordinato­r for strategic communicat­ions at the White House National Security Council. The Treasury Department intends to formalise the penalties next week.

Speaking at a White House news briefing, Kirby said the designatio­n would open up ‘‘additional avenues’’ for the United States to go after Wagner’s business activities around the world, and give other nations and institutio­ns the firepower to follow suit.

‘‘These actions recognise the transconti­nental threat that Wagner poses, including through its ongoing pattern of serious criminal activity,’’ Kirby said. He noted the Russian mercenary group had carried out ‘‘atrocities and human rights abuses in Ukraine, and of course elsewhere around the world’’.

The action comes a month after the Commerce Department imposed new restrictio­ns on Wagner, designatin­g the group a Russian ‘‘military end user’’ to hinder the mercenarie­s’ ability to acquire items that use US technology.

Kirby displayed photograph­s depicting what he said were five Russian rail cars travelling from Russia into North Korea on November 18 and returning along the same route the following day. He said those rail cars carried an initial delivery of North Korean infantry rockets and missiles for use by Wagner fighters in Ukraine. Kirby said the arms transfers stood in ‘‘direct violation’’ of United Nations Security Council resolution­s.

The Biden administra­tion first alleged last month that North Korea was making weapons

deliveries to Wagner. ‘‘We obviously condemn North Korea’s actions, and we urge North Korea to cease these deliveries to Wagner immediatel­y,’’ Kirby said.

Since its first appearance in Ukraine in 2014, Wagner has risen to internatio­nal renown as a ruthless shadow instrument of Russian power that has been accused of human rights abuses in Syria, Mali, Central African Republic and Ukraine.

Its founder, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, spent nine years in prison for robbery and other

crimes, before operating a hot dog stand, casinos and a floating restaurant in post-Soviet St Petersburg, where he came to know Putin.

Prigozhin’s company, Concord Catering, won contracts with Russian state and municipal entities. Meanwhile, the former convict and caterer meddled in foreign affairs, funding the notorious St Petersburg troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, which interfered in the 2016 US presidenti­al election, and also backing Wagner, which swelled into a large battlefiel­d force in Ukraine this past year after Putin allowed him to recruit convicts from Russian prisons.

The mercenary group – which US officials say now has 40,000 convicts and 10,000 contractor­s deployed to Ukraine – for months has been waging a brutal and costly battle against Ukrainian forces in the city of Bakhmut. Wagner recently made gains in neighbouri­ng Soledar.

‘‘They are both mining towns – gypsum in Bakhmut and salt up in Soledar,’’ Kirby said. ‘‘We think that also has a role to play in why Mr Prigozhin is so adamant on pouring, literally just throwing bodies into a meat grinder to get these two towns. It’s very much in keeping with his modus operandi in places like Africa, where he is going after mining rights and mining capabiliti­es.’’

Prigozhin responded in a statement posted on his catering company’s VK page. ‘‘Finally, the Wagner private military company and the Americans are colleagues. From now on, our relationsh­ip can be called a ‘showdown between criminal clans.’’’

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Western backers failed yesterday to resolve a dispute over which nations will supply Kyiv with powerful battle tanks that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told them are needed to mount a new offensive against entrenched Russian forces.

The disagreeme­nt, debated behind closed doors among dozens of defence ministers gathered at the Ramstein military facility in Germany, centres on whether Germany is willing to transfer its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, or at least authorise other nations that field the German-made vehicles to supply them. –

 ?? AP ?? People walk by a repainted mural depicting the logo of Russia’s Wagner Group on a wall in Belgrade, this week. The United States is to designate the mercenary group a ‘‘transnatio­nal criminal organisati­on’’.
AP People walk by a repainted mural depicting the logo of Russia’s Wagner Group on a wall in Belgrade, this week. The United States is to designate the mercenary group a ‘‘transnatio­nal criminal organisati­on’’.

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