Wagner boss writes letter to US asking “what crime” the group committed

The financier of the Wagner Group, which is fighting for Moscow in Ukraine, has written to the White House asking “what crime” members of his private military company (PMC) have committed.

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s letter came after White House National Security spokesman John Kirby announced on Friday that the Wagner mercenary group had been labeled a “transnational criminal organization.”

Kirby said Wagner had about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, 80 percent of whom were recruited from prisons. He revealed how US intelligence photos taken in November showed North Korea supplying weapons such as infantry rockets and missiles to Wagner in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

Kirby said that Wagner “is a criminal organization that commits widespread atrocities and human rights abuses.” The designation could pave the way for broader sanctions against the group’s global network, which stretches as far as Africa.

Prigozhin wrote a terse letter to Kirby on Saturday, challenging the group’s US view.

“Could you please clarify what crime was committed by PMC Wagner,” Prigozhin wrote in English and Russian in the short letter shared on his social media channel Telegram. news week has reached out to the White House for comment.

Wagner’s criminal designation freezes all US assets of the group and prohibits US citizens from giving her funds, goods and services.

Freezing Prigozhin’s assets in Europe is one of the aims of legal action taken in London by McCue Jury & Partners, which issued a “letter before action” in November as part of a civil society “lawfare” campaign against Vladimir Putin’s ally. have issued against him.

On behalf of Ukrainians, the law firm said Wagner used “torture, murder and rape as weapons of war.”

Prigozhin has described Wagner as an independent force with its own aircraft, tanks, missiles and artillery, and has credited itself with advances towards the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast and the capture of nearby Soledar.

Meanwhile, Kirby also said on Friday that US intelligence shows there is a rivalry between the Wagner Group and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD).

“Wagner is becoming a rival center of power for the Russian military and other Russian ministries,” Kirby said, while Prigozhin has publicly criticized Russian generals and defense officials for their performance on the battlefield.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its Friday assessment that the Wagner Group appears to be “struggling to present itself as an effective parallel military structure, increasingly proving itself to be a parasitic paramilitary entity.”