Britain and France are about to formally ban the Russian Wagner mercenary group "as a terrorist organization," to increase pressure on President Vladimir Putin and Russia.
Wagner, known as a private military company, is a group of mercenaries, accused of human rights abuses, that drew international attention after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. It is run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ex-convict and former Panchos salesman, known as "Putin's chef".
The group has played a central role in President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Troops of the Wagner Group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, in Ukraine. Photo: AP
He is leading attempts to take the eastern city of Bakhmut, which has become the focus of the war for both sides.
But at the same time, it threatens the Kremlin with withdrawal from Bakhmut, the front line in Ukraine, if it is not given ammunition. A gesture that is seen as a fracture in the power structure surrounding Putin.
Recruit in prisons and in Libya
Prigozhin recruits in Russia and abroad. Faced with the number of victims on the front lines, he resorts to conscription in Russian prisons, where those sentenced to life imprisonment are promised freedom if they survive the war.
He had privileged access to Putin, who seems to have lost it. But it is still part of the Russian strategy of seizing gold, diamond, oil reserves in Mozambique, Sudan, Congo and Libya.
His mercenaries train forces now fighting in Sudan's civil war, where a gold deposit in Darfur fuels Russia's war in Ukraine.
The Mozambican government hired him to fight with ISIS and defend its gas facilities. In Mali he displaced French military forces and there are already allegations of atrocities committed by them against the civilian population.
He used British Justice
Prigozhin, 61, was able to use the British courts to bring a defamation case against Eliot Higgins, a British journalist, following revelations from his website Bellingcat about the group's shadow operations.
The case collapsed in March last year following the outbreak of war in Ukraine and personal sanctions imposed on Prigozhin. But government sources said it was an example of how the ban could help prevent Wagner's influence and operations in the UK.
A government source said that, after two months of building a legal case, the group's ban was "imminent." It will probably be enacted in a few weeks.
Like Al Qaeda or ISIS
Yevgeny Prigozhin shows the bodies of mercenaries killed by the lack of munities in Ukraine. Photo: AFP
The ban would make it a criminal offense to "belong to Wagner, attend his meetings, encourage support for him, or wear his logo in public," putting him on an equal footing with groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda.
It would also impose financial sanctions, which would be significant because the group and all its members would be prohibited from using UK courts to silence journalists and activists and the inability to raise funds, which could pass through British institutions.
For many years, Wagner was closely associated with the Kremlin, but the invasion of Ukraine has strained the relationship between Prigozhin and Putin.
In an outburst full of expletives last week, Prigozhin said "trash" Russian generals were responsible for the deaths of Wagner's fighters, as he accused them of depriving them of ammunition in the nine-month battle for Bakhmut.
In addition to the war in Ukraine, the group has been involved in numerous conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, fighting for control of gold mines in the Central African Republic and helping to prop up President Assad's regime in Syria, especially in Palmyra, in its war against ISIS.
Money laundering?
There has been no evidence that Wagner or people linked to the group are operating in the UK since the war in Ukraine began.
The ban is largely seen as a symbolic move. However, a government source said there were "suspicions" that the group had helped "launder money outside the UK", "together with organised crime groups", afterfinancial sanctions were imposed against Russian oligarchs and Putin's allies, in the wake of the war.
To proscribe the group, the British Home Office would need to build a case for why the legal step was required, which could include references to classified intelligence.
David Lammy, Labour's shadow foreign secretary, said: "It is only right that the government seems to finally be listening to Labour's calls for its proscription as a terrorist organisation."
France asks to put it on the list of terrorist organizations of the EU
France is prepared to adopt the same attitude. On Tuesday, a motion for a resolution by the representative of the Renaissance, conservative MP Benjamin Haddad for the inclusion of the Russian Wagner group "on the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union" was approved.
The National Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for the inclusion of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, accused of abuses in Ukraine and Africa, on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations.
The text, without binding value, invites the French government to "mobilize diplomatically" so that the EU accedes to this request, which allows it to sanction more effectively the members of Wagner and their followers, in particular economically.
The motion for a resolution referred to "many atrocities against the civilian population" in Ukraine committed by this group, some of which could be described as "war crimes".
"It's about sending a political, symbolic message. A sign of denunciation of Wagner and his activities, which deliberately target civilians for political purposes, such as terrorism," the author of the text, Benjamin Hadad, had argued.
The Lithuanian parliament already adopted a resolution on Tuesday stating that "Wagner is a terrorist organization."
Paris, correspondent
ap
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