Dec 16- Jason Blazakis- Russia's Wagner Group is more than mercenaries

As published in Newsweek, December 12, 2022

Who is Jason Blazakis…

Jason Blazakis is a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center and senior advisor at the Soufan Group, and former advisor the U.S. State Department. He is currently the Director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Graduate School of the Middlebury Institute at Monterey, and Professor at John Hopkins University.

Russia's Wagner Group Is About More Than Mercenaries- Newsweek

The Wagner Group, a Russia-based private military company (PMC), is more than what it seems. It is also, as I testified before the United Kingdom's House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, a terrorist group. Created in 2014 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Wagner Group cut its teeth in Crimea. Since 2014, the Wagner Group's portfolio has grown, alongside Putin's grandiose ambitions.

According to recent reports, the United States government is considering adding the Wagner Group to the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). This is the right move, and the administration should act quickly to put the Wagner Group on the same level as groups like Islamic State and al Qaeda.

My opinion is informed by serving for more than a decade as the director of State Department's office charged with making recommendations to the secretary of state as to which groups should be labeled as FTOs.

The Wagner Group meets the three legal criteria for listing as an FTO. First, it is a foreign-based organization, which is the only kind that falls under the State Department's remit. The group is based in the Russian Federation and has a global footprint. It has carried out operations in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere throughout the African continent.

Source: Foreign Policy Research Institute

Second, the State Department can only designate groups that have engaged in terrorist activity. On this front, the Wagner Group's trail of violent activity targeting civilians around the globe is quite clear. In Ukraine, Wagner mercenaries have been involved in gruesome acts of violence against civilians.

Source: Image: @Denysmonastyrskiy/Facebook/AP

In Africa, according to data provided by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, Wagner-linked individuals have killed hundreds of civilians in places like the Central African Republic (CAR). The Wagner Group's killings of noncombatants are designed to create an atmosphere of fear—that is the quintessential definition of terrorism.

Source: International Crisis Group

The third criteria for listing an FTO is that the terrorist activity of the group must represent a threat to U.S. national security interests. The Wagner Group's adventurism in Ukraine is key to the Russian Federation's geostrategic interests of taking over large swaths of territory in violation of international norms. This, by definition, is inimical to U.S. foreign policy objectives. Wagner Group activities in Africa, as I testified to the UK's parliament, are exploitative. For example, the Wagner Group may be making upward of $10 million a month for providing training to the Malian Government, which took power in a military coup. Elsewhere in Africa, the Wagner Group has profited by harvesting timber in the CAR, while also securing diamond and gold mining licenses. The story of Wagner Group profiteering is similar in Sudan, where the group has benefited financially from its access to gold mines.

Olga Lautman 🇺🇦 @OlgaNYC1211

This is a must read! Russia destroyed Sudan’s democracy, helped organize a coup, and now Putin’s butcher Prigozhin and his Wagner killers are stealing billions in gold from Sudan. This is the typical Russian playbook in places they operate

amp.cnn.comRussia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in UkraineMultiple interviews with high-level Sudanese and US officials and troves of documents reviewed by CNN paint a picture of an elaborate Russian scheme to plunder Sudan’s riches in a bid to fortify Russia against increasingly robust Western sanctions and to buttress Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

The Wagner Group is a profit center and its activities, especially those that include making money via the exploitation of natural resources, provide the Russian Federation an ability to circumvent U.S., European Union, and UK sanctions. Adding the Wagner Group to the list of FTOs may help with this challenge. Adding groups to terrorist lists raises the stakes by increasing the reputational risk that comes with dealing with terrorists.

Source: Al Jezeera

It is one thing to partner with a PMC, but quite another to engage in financial activities with a designated terrorist group. Adding the Wagner Group to the FTO list may deter countries from providing sweetheart deals that contribute to Wagner, and, by extension, the Russian Federation's accumulation of wealth. Once labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. government, countries that host Wagner face the possibility that foreign aid and military assistance from Western countries will be cut. Better yet, an FTO listing may help sever the connections the Wagner Group has already developed. If so, the Wagner Group's potential loss of access to the natural resources in CAR, Sudan, and elsewhere would help the financial fight the United States is waging against the Russian Federation.