Washington will impose additional sanctions next week against Russian private military company the Wagner Group, Reuters reports citing a high-ranking representative of the US administration.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the US Treasury Department will designate Wagner as a significant Transnational Criminal Organization
"In coordination with this designation, we will also impose additional sanctions next week against Wagner and its support network across multiple continents. These actions recognize the transcontinental threat that Wagner poses, including through its ongoing pattern of serious criminal activity," Kirby told reporters at the daily White House briefing.
"In coordination with this designation, we will also impose additional sanctions next week against Wagner and its support network across multiple continents. These actions recognize the transcontinental threat that Wagner poses, including through its ongoing pattern of serious criminal activity," Kirby told reporters at the daily White House briefing.
Declaration of Wagner PMC as a Transnational Criminal Organization freezes any US assets of Wagner and prohibits Americans from providing funds, goods or services to this group.
"With these actions, our message to any company that is considering providing support to Wagner is this: Wagner is a criminal organization that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses, and we will work relentlessly to identify, disrupt, expose, and target those assisting Wagner," Kirby said.
Wagner's PMC appeared in 2014 and actively operated in a number of countries where Russia has important interests - in particular, Syria, Libya, CAR and Ukraine. There, among other things, they committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. After the Russian full-scale invasion into Ukraine, Wagner mercenaries took part in massacres of civilians. Prisoners from Russian prisons are currently being recruited into PMC. Prigozhin recruits mercenaries for war in Ukraine as well as in Africa.
For a long time, Prigozhin denied connection with Wagner's PMC, and recently confirmed the existence of this group. Oligarch, who is under Western sanctions, is considered to be close to Putin and supporter of aggressive war against Ukraine.
In January 2023, it became known that Wagner's PMC was legalized in Russia, despite a ban on the activities of paramilitary mercenaries. Joint-stock company PMC Wagner Center is registered in the Russian register in the building of a business center of the same name, built by Yevgeny Prigozhin in St. Petersburg. Until now no legal entity with the PMC Wagner name existed in Russia.