The European Union imposed restrictive measures against the Wagner Group, a private military corporation, on Monday Dec. 13. Wagner has been named as being among the Russian illegal occupation and invasion forces in Ukraine’s Donbas and Crimea.
The EU statement reported that “The Wagner Group has recruited, trained and sent private military operatives to conflict zones around the world to fuel violence, loot natural resources and intimidate civilians in violation of international law, including international human rights law,” and is known to have been operational in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and the Central African Republic.
According to expert testimony in the US Congress in 2020, “Prigozhin’s [founder of Wagner] background is very unlike that of most Russian oligarchs. As a young man in Soviet Leningrad, he was imprisoned for 9 years on organized crime-related charges.” He later befriended the future Russian leader Vladimir Putin, as Putin favored Prigozhin’s restaurants and catering services.
The Congressional expert continued that besides Wagner, Prigozhin “founded St. Petersburg’s Internet Research Agency, the “troll farm” under U.S. indictment and sanctions for the clandestine social media influence operations it attempted during the U.S. 2016 presidential and 2018 congressional election campaigns”.
Importantly,
“Beginning in 2014, probably with the takeover of Crimea and certainly with its launch of the war in eastern Ukraine, the Russian state has frequently used the Wagner Group as a security tool abroad.“
U.S. and media sources reported an attack by the Wagner Group on U.S. Special Forces in Syria in 2018; and, according to officials, those Wagner Group attackers were wiped out by U.S. air strikes.
In issuing the restrictive measures on Monday, the EU declared “the EU’s strong determination to stand up for its interests and values in its neighborhood and beyond, and to take tangible action against those threatening international peace and security and breaching international law.”
“The aim of today's decision is to curtail the subversive activities of the Wagner Group“
according to the EU.
The restrictions list includes 51-year-old lieutenant colonel Dmitry Utkin, who has been linked with illegal Kremlin mercenary operations in Ukraine.
This year a major scandal broke out in Ukraine concerning a secret plan made by Ukrainian security forces to lure a group of Wagner fighters into their hands. In July 2020 the snare operation was torpedoed at the last minute generating speculation that there was a mole in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office. Last month, he ended the speculation – dubbed Wagnergate – by announcing that he himself had called it off having concluded it was too risky.
Padraig Purcell, Irish long-time pro-Ukrainian volunteer, activist, trainer and mediator.
