What is the Wagner Group, Russia’s secret army accused of violating human rights in the world

The spokesman for National Security Council from United States, John Kirbyannounced last Friday the appointment of the wagner group as a “transnational criminal organization” due to the arms agreements it signed with Pyongyang, which violate resolutions of the Security Council of the UN. Also, the Treasury Department will impose economic sanctions on the paramilitaries that have operated in favor of Russia, hand in hand with Vladimir Putinand in the conflicts of different countries, including the ukrainian war.

Journalists and analysts who have followed the paramilitary group describe it as a network of mercenaries under Russian interests and place it in operations in Syria, Libya, Sudan and the Central African Republicin whose territories Moscow has interests.

What is the Wagner Group?

Yevgeny Prigozhinknown as ‘Putin’s chef’, began by selling sausages, but soon managed to amass a great fortune that allowed him to move into the world of politics, the media and the business of war: he is the founder of the wagner group, according to the BBC. inclusive, from USA He is accused of directing internet trolls.

Prigozhin He is one of the most powerful men in Russia and one of the personalities closest to the president Vladimir Putin. Despite the fact that he has denied his ties to the paramilitary group, the oligarch appeared in a video while addressing some prisoners in a Russian jail, whom he urged to fight with Wagner and in exchange for his sentences they would be pardoned.

Recently, dressed in military clothing, Prigozhin appears in one of the salt mines in the city of Soledar, confirming that it was the military group and not the Army that managed to expel Ukrainian troops from the town.

The group gained great notoriety after supporting pro-Russian rebels in the armed conflict that led to the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014. Investigators who have followed Wagner’s members point to them as mercenaries specialized in deployments in war zones and dedicated to carrying out specific actions to provide security or perform targeted attacks.

“We can also classify them as a shady network of operators. They can hire different mercenaries and recruit fighters,” he said. Amy MacKinnona researcher for the Washington-based analysis website Foreign Policy, told the BBC.

Mackinnon pointed to the group’s violence, citing the case of a person who was tortured and beheaded as an example. At the time, the Russian press came to identify the perpetrators of this crime as Wagner’s private military security contractors.

Testimony of a former mercenary of the Wagner Group

Andrey Medvedev is a 26-year-old who joined Wagner and crossed Ukraine serving the group near Bakhmut, the front line in the Donetsk region, he revealed to CNN. This man revealed the atrocities they committed.

“They rounded up those who did not want to fight and shot them in front of the newcomers (…) They brought two prisoners who refused to go fight and shot them in front of everyone. They buried them right in the trenches that the apprentices had dug,” he recounted.

Olga Romanovadirector of the NGO Russia behind barsexplained in a video posted by the YouTube channel My Russian Rights that about 80% of the prisoners recruited by Wagner are dead or missing.

“Our data shows that, at the end of December, between 42,000 Y 43,000 inmates had been recruited (to fight in the Ukraine). By now, it’s probably over 50,000. Of that number, 10,000 are now fighting on the front lines, because the rest have been killed or wounded, gone AWOL, deserted or surrendered,” he said. romanova.

Source-larepublica.pe