Wagner Group: UK to put Russia mercenaries on proscribed terror list alongside ISIS
The UK is set to designate Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group as a proscribed terrorist organisation, it is understood.
The Times quoted a government source as saying the move was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks after two months spent building a legal case.
Proscription would make it a criminal offence to join Wagner, encourage support for it, display its logo in public or attend its meetings.
Other proscribed groups are the Islamic State, al Qaeda and the neo-Nazi National Action.
It comes as Labour demanded ministers formally label the Wagner Group a terror outfit after accusing it of committing “appalling atrocities”.
‘Things will get scary’
The Wagner Group, led by millionaire warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, made up of contractors and recruited convicts, has been fighting alongside Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, including in Bakhmut, where the longest – and likely bloodiest – battle of the war took place.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin used Moscow’s Victory Day parade to accuse the West of unleashing a “real war” on the country with its “untamed ambitions”.
Foreign secretary James Cleverly said international allies must continue supporting Ukraine to uphold the principle that “powerful nations cannot invade their neighbours with impunity”.
Speaking on a visit to the US, Cleverly said: “Things are complicated, things are messy, things are difficult, things will get scary.
“We will expect to hear escalatory words coming out of Putin’s lips – we need to be ready… we need to have resolve to continue to do the right thing, notwithstanding those comments.”
‘Appalling atrocities’
Labour said in February it wanted ministers to follow the US’s lead after Washington designated Wagner a “significant transnational criminal organisation”.
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The Wagner Group is responsible for appalling atrocities in Ukraine and across the world. No-one in the UK should be allowed to belong to the Wagner Group, support or promote it.”
The push for Wagner to be proscribed came after a government department reportedly helped Prigozhin to circumvent UK sanctions to take a British journalist to court in 2021.
The Treasury began a review after licences were reportedly issued to allow lawyers to help Prigozhin start legal action against a Bellingcat reporter in the UK while under sanctions.
As a result, the department said ministers were committed to “further targeted changes” to legal fees licensing processes to “safeguard the sanctions regime” against “manipulation”.
By Nina Lloyd, PA Political Correspondent