LONDON, Sept 6 (Portal) – Britain will declare Russian mercenary group Wagner a terrorist organization, making membership or support illegal, the government said on Wednesday.
A draft resolution to be submitted to parliament will allow Wagner’s assets to be classified as terrorist property and confiscated, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Interior Minister Suella Braverman described Wagner as “violent and destructive.” It served as a “military tool of Vladimir Putin’s Russia abroad,” she said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wagner does not legally exist.
“There is nothing to comment on,” he said when asked about the measure.
Across Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa, Wagner was involved in looting, torture and “barbaric murders,” the British statement said, calling it a threat to global security.
A flag with the logo of private mercenary group Wagner is tied to a car during an automobile rally at a patriotic festival marking Russia’s National Flag Day in Moscow region, Russia, August 23, 2023. Portal/Yulia Morozova/File Photo Acquire License Rights
“They are terrorists, plain and simple – and this banning order makes that clear in British law,” Braverman said.
The order is expected to take effect on September 13th. After that, it would be a criminal offense to belong to or promote the group, arrange its meetings or give a speech, and wear its logo in public, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
David Lammy, foreign policy spokesman for the opposition Labor Party, said the move was “long overdue”. The government must now push for Putin to be prosecuted for his aggression, he said.
Wagner served in Syria and a number of countries in North and West Africa. It recruited thousands of convicts from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine and provided the main strike force for Russia’s 2022-2023 winter offensive there.
There was a brief mutiny in Russia in June, which Putin condemned as a betrayal, and on August 23, its boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and his senior lieutenants were killed in a plane crash.
Britain imposed sanctions on Prigozhin in 2020, Wagner as a whole in March 2022, and sanctions on individuals and companies linked to the group in the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan in July this year.
Reporting by Lavanya Ahire in Bengaluru and Sarah Young in London; Edited by Peter Graff, William Schomberg and Angus MacSwan
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.
Acquire license rights, opens new tab