Commits Serious Human Rights Violations In Six Countries, European Union Imposing Sanctions Against Russian Mercenaries

Wagner Group mercenary illustration. (Source: ssu.gov.ua via VOA)

JAKARTA - The European Union imposed sanctions on private Russian military contractor Wagner Group on Monday, as well as on eight other individuals and three energy companies in Syria, accusing the group of operating clandestinely on behalf of the Kremlin.

"The Wagner group is responsible for serious human rights violations in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Mozambique," the European Union said in its official journal, which lists torture and extrajudicial executions.

Russia denies any wrongdoing. President Vladimir Putin said. Private military contractors have the right to work and pursue their interests anywhere in the world, as long as they do not violate Russian laws. President Putin said the Wagner Group did not represent the Russian state or was paid for by it.

The travel ban and asset freeze, designed to restrict any government from working with the Wagner Group, is unlikely to have a major impact in Moscow. But they marked a further hardening of the EU's foreign policy toward Russia, diplomats said.

A list in the EU's official journal also accuses Russia of links to Wagner for the first time in such public and detail.

The European Union blacklisted Dimitriy Utkin, a former military intelligence officer (GRU), saying he was the founder of Wagner, responsible for "coordinating and planning operations for the deployment of Wagner Group mercenaries in Ukraine".

Valery Zakharov, security adviser to the president of the Central African Republic, is the only Russian public figure on the list. The European Union accused him of masterminding the killing of three Russian journalists who were investigating the Wagner Group in 2018. Zakharov has denied knowledge of the company, any links to it, or any wrongdoing.

The other three sanctioned, Andrey Troshev, Andrey Bogatov and Alexander Kuznetsov, were Wagner commanders whom President Putin received at a Kremlin event, posing with him for photos published by Russian news outlet Fontanka in 2017.

Reuters was unable to contact the Wagner Group or any of the listed individuals or entities for comment.

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 Belarusian news agency Belta.

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

Three Russia-based entities linked to the Wagner Group which the European Union says are involved in oil and gas production in Syria are also subject to sanctions. The first, Evro Polis LLC, is seen by Western officials as a legal cover for the Wagner Group in Syria, where Russia has intervened since 2015 in the civil war.

The sanctions follow the European Union's travel ban and asset freeze in October 2020 of Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed "Putin's cook" for his close ties to the Kremlin, which the bloc says has close ties to the Wagner Group. Evro Polis is a company linked to Prigozhin, Western officials say.

"The Wagner Group is financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin," the European Union said Monday in its official journal. Prigozhin himself denied such a link in a statement on Friday.

Separately, the European Union on Monday adopted sanctions against the regime with regard to Mali, although no names were added. Reuters reported in September that Mali's military junta was in discussions about deploying the Wagner Group in Mali, which France says is unacceptable because it has its own troops in the region.