Wagner Group set to be listed as a terrorist group

A government source has told the Times newspaper that the UK is set to designate the Wagner Group as a proscribed terrorist organisation.

This would make it a criminal offence to join Wagner, encourage support for it, display its logo in public or attend its meetings. After months of legal work, the more could come within weeks.

Opposition leaders have called for the designation. Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The Wagner Group is responsible for the appalling atrocities in Ukraine and across the world.

“No-one in the UK should be allowed to belong to the Wagner Group, support it or promote it.”

The French parliament has called on the EU to label the group as terrorists. MP Benjamin Haddad said: “Wherever they work, Wagner members spread instability and violence.

“They kill and torture. They massacre and pillage. They intimidate and manipulate with almost total impunity.”

The US has already designated the group a “significant transnational criminal organisation”.

Image: NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons