Wagner Group may be smuggling weapons from Mali to Ukraine, U.S. Treasury says – National | 24CA News
The U.S. Treasury stated Thursday it has sanctioned a key member of the Wagner Group, the non-public militia that has had an more and more influential position within the conflict in Ukraine.
In a press release, Treasury officers stated the transfer targets Ivan Aleksandrovich Maslov and blocked all of his property and holdings within the U.S. Maslov is a Russian nationwide and is allegedly primarily based in Mali, Africa, heading up the militia’s operations in that nation.
The Treasury says these operations embody trafficking conflict tools into Ukraine, the place the Wagner Group is working as a personal militia in help of Russia’s invasion.
The Treasury assertion says that the group could also be utilizing Mali as a 3rd nation to route tools bought from international suppliers to Ukraine, together with mines, unmanned aerial autos, radar and counterbattery methods.
According to the assertion, the group is prepared to make use of false paperwork to cowl its tracks and may additionally be utilizing different nations the place it has a “foothold” to site visitors weapons.
The Wagner Group has had an more and more vital position within the Ukraine conflict, together with on the frontlines of Bakhmut, which has been one of many longest and bloodiest battles of the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has come to depend on the group to assist Russian forces within the conflict given home anger over conscription and the group’s willingness to recruit prisoners.
The Wagner Group is believed to function around the globe, together with in Africa and Syria, and has plundered minerals and diamonds to fund its efforts.
The Treasury says that the group has been particularly disruptive in Africa, most lately supplying Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces with surface-to-air missiles to combat Sudan’s military.
The group has been accused of significant legal exercise within the Central African Republic and Mali, together with mass executions, rape, youngster abductions and different bodily abuse, along with the allegations towards them in Ukraine.
“Treasury’s sanctions against the most senior Wagner Group representative in Mali identify and disrupt a key operative supporting the group’s global activities,” stated Brian E. Nelson, beneath secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in a press release.
“The Wagner Group’s presence on the African continent is a destabilizing force for any country that allows for the deployment of the group’s resources into their sovereign territory.”
According to the Treasury, Maslov has been working carefully with the Malian authorities and has additionally allegedly arrange conferences between Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, Wagner’s outspoken chief, and authorities officers from a number of African nations.
The group’s leaders have beforehand been sanctioned by the U.S., the U.Ok., the E.U., and Canada and the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control labelled the Wagner Group as a transnational legal group in January.
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