United Kingdom proscribes Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organization
By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES
The Russian mercenary organization, Wagner Group, has been proscribed as a terrorist organization after an order was laid in Parliament this month. The order comes into force with immediate effect and will make belonging to the Wagner Group or actively supporting the group in the UK a criminal offence, with a potential jail sentence of 14 years which can be handed down alongside or in place of a fine. According to the UK Home Office, the designation “sends a strong message that terrorist organisations are not tolerated in the UK” and deters them from operating in the country.
“Wagner is a violent and destructive organisation which has acted as a military tool of Vladimir Putin’s Russia overseas. They are terrorists, plain and simple.”
-said Home Secretary Suella Braverman
Per the terrorist designation, it is a criminal offence for a person in the UK to:
-belong to a proscribed organisation;
-invite support for a proscribed organisation;
-recklessly express support for a proscribed organisation;
-arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation;
-wear clothing or carry articles in public which arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation; or publish an image of an article such as a flag or logo in the same circumstances.
The Wagner Group characterizes itself as a private military contractor to which Moscow denies any connection.
Soldiers from the Central African Armed Forces wearing a Wagner Group patch (Wikipedia Commons/Corbeau News Centrafrique)
Wagner Founder Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin Killed In Plane Crash
Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, was a Russian mercenary leader and oligarch. He led the Wagner Group private military company and was a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until launching a rebellion in June 2023. In 2014, Prigozhin reportedly founded the Wagner Group to support pro-Russian paramilitaries in Ukraine. In 23 August 2023, exactly two months after the rebellion, Prigozhin was killed along with nine other people when a business jet crashed in Tver Oblast, north of Moscow.
Wagner reportedly has supported regimes friendly with Putin’s Russia, including in the civil wars in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali. In Africa, it has reportedly offered regimes security in exchange for the transfer of diamond and gold mining contracts to Russian companies. Wagner operatives have been accused of war crimes including murder, torture, rape and robbery of civilians.
The group’s founders, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, were killed along with eight others in a plane crash in Russia’s Tver region in August shortly after launching a brief insurrection against Russian military leadership. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
As of March 2023, there have been a total of 92 people charged with proscription-related offences as a primary offence in Great Britain, and 56 have been convicted. There are 79 international and 14 Northern Ireland related terrorist organisations proscribed.
