EU imposes sanctions on Russian mercenary group Wagner for human rights abuses

The European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group, as well as eight people and three other energy companies in Syria accused of helping finance mercenaries in Ukraine, Libya and Syria.

The EU accused the Wagner Group, whose members are mostly ex-military, of human rights abuses and said it carried out clandestine operations on behalf of the Kremlin.

“The Wagner Group is responsible for serious human rights abuses in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Mozambique,” the EU said in its official journal, listing torture and extrajudicial executions.

Wagner’s personnel have been identified as conducting operations in several conflict zones, including Russia’s neighboring Ukraine, war-torn Syria and several restless African countries.

Warning to countries considering using Wagner units

France, in particular, has been pressuring its EU partners to act, arguing that Wagner’s forays into Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic have had a destabilizing effect.

The Russian government denies any ties to the group, which has been compared to similar US private military teams, such as the famous former Blackwater group.

But French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has called them “a company of Russian mercenaries who wage war by proxy on Russia’s behalf” and added: “Even if Russia denies it, no one is fooled.”

European diplomats said the bloc would make use of various existing sanctions regimes to add names of personnel and companies linked to Wagner to the target lists.

They said the list would also be a warning to countries tempted to hire Wagner units, such as Mali, a former French colony where European troops fight Islamist insurgents.

‘Putin’s cook’

Wagner is said to have been financed by 60-year-old St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, allegedly close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nicknamed “Putin’s cook” for his close ties to the Kremlin, Prigozhin has already received sanctions from the EU and the United States for destabilizing Libya and meddling in the US elections.

“The Wagner Group is financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin,” the EU said Monday in its official gazette.

Prigozhin again denied such links in a statement issued on Friday.

The travel bans and asset freezes are unlikely to have much of an impact on Moscow, but mark a further tightening of the EU’s foreign policy towards Russia, diplomats said.

The United States 🇺🇸 and the European Union 🇪🇺 have sanctions against Yevgeny Prigozhin

These sanctions have not deterred the activities of the Wagner Group, and the new EU sanctions are unlikely to be more effective.

– Samuel Ramani (@ SamRamani2) December 13, 2021 Former Russian intelligence officials

Among those targeted, the EU blacklisted Dimitriy Utkin, a former Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer, saying he was the founder of the Wagner Group and responsible for “coordinating and planning operations for the deployment of Wagner Group mercenaries. in Ukraine “.

Two others, Denis Kharitonov and Sergey Shcherbakov, were part of a group of suspected Wagner mercenaries who were briefly detained in Belarus last year and sent back to Russia, according to the Belarusian state news agency Belta.

The EU also said that Kharitonov had fought for Russia in eastern Ukraine, “personally shot down a Ukrainian helicopter” in the region and “received the Order of Merit of the Fatherland from the Russian Federation.”

Sanctions were also imposed on three Russia-based entities linked to the Wagner Group that the EU said were involved in oil and gas production in Syria.

Separately, the EU adopted a Mali-related sanctions regime on Monday, though no names were added.

Mali’s military junta was in talks about the deployment of the Wagner Group in Mali, according to press reports. France says the use of Wagner units is not acceptable because it has its own troops in the region.

Economic response to the military assault on Ukraine

The sanctions on the Wagner Group were announced after a meeting in Brussels of EU foreign ministers, who signaled their willingness to impose huge new measures targeting Russia’s economy if a troop build-up near the Ukrainian border leads to direct military action.

“Let me say, once again, firmly that the European Union stands united in support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels.

“The ministers – all of them – have made it very clear today that any aggression against Ukraine will have political consequences and a high economic cost for Russia.

“We are coordinating globally with our transatlantic and related partners,” he added,

Before the talks, Lithuania’s Gabrielius Landsbergis emphasized that the threat of sanctions was a deterrent but that, if necessary, they would have to be on an “unprecedented scale”.

Monday’s meeting was the first EU foreign affairs council for Germany’s new foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, a green politician who took office last week in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s new coalition.

Pipeline warning

Berlin has one of the biggest cards in the sanctions deck, if it decides that Putin’s actions justify blocking the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

When asked about the threat to Ukraine before heading to Brussels, Baerbock told ZDF television that “in the event of a further escalation, this pipeline would not be able to enter service.”

After the Brussels meeting, Baerbock insisted that Germany’s position on the gas pipeline had been clarified, without repeating it, and said that “any action by Russia would have serious diplomatic consequences.”

( Jowhar with AFP and REUTERS)