MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th July, 2023) The Foreign Affairs Committee of the UK parliament called on the government on Wednesday to designate the Wagner Group private military company (PMC) as a terrorist organization.
In February, The Telegraph reported that the UK Home Office was developing plans to designate the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization.
"The report calls for the urgent proscription of the Wagner Network as a terrorist organisation," the parliament said in a statement.
The lawmakers also urged the government to impose sanctions "faster and harder" on organizations and individuals associated with the PMC, the statement read. The committee believes that for nearly 10 years, the government has underestimated the activities of Wagner, "as well as the security implications for Europe and its significant expansion in Africa," the statement added.
The Wagner group has allegedly been involved in military operations in at least seven countries from 2014, the committee said in a report, entitled "Guns for gold: the Wagner Network exposed."
"The evidence we received has given us high confidence that the Wagner Network has conducted military operations in at least seven countries since 2014: Ukraine; Syria; the Central African Republic (car); Sudan; Libya; Mozambique; and Mali," the report read.
The committee also has high confidence that the group has conducted non-military operations in Zimbabwe, the DRC, Madagascar, and South Africa since 2014, according to the report. The research also pointed to the possibility of non-military network activity in six other countries, namely Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Serbia and Zambia, but did not provide evidence.
Among the services allegedly provided by the Wagner network, in addition to military operations, the authors of the report cite political consulting, electoral services, media campaigns, mining and providing security.
The authors of the report believe that the Wagner network "affect the UK's national security," by being involved in the Ukraine conflict, posing risk of deterioration of the UK's relations with the countries where the network operates, and allegedly increasing instability in the regions of the organization's presence.
The report also presented possible responses to the group's activity, including additional sanctions, cooperation with the United States and the European Union over Wagner-linked sanctions, travel bans for Wagner-linked individuals, deterring other countries from engaging with the group, as well as proscribing the Wagner network as a terrorist organization.
