Guns for gold:the Wagner Network exposed
21
The price of Wagner military deployments
Operating with impunity
18. The brutality of Wagner fighters when offering military services is notorious and well-documented, violating the norms of international law and taking the lives of civilians. Dr Sorcha MacLeod, Chair of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries, warned of the "trends of widespread violence and grave human rights violations" that surround them.[1] Wagner fighters stand accused of atrocities in virtually all of the countries where they have operated militarily since 2014.[2] Examples include:
- In Ukraine, the German foreign intelligence service intercepted messages in April 2022 suggesting Wagner fighters played a leading role in the massacre in Bucha.[3] Within the wider Russia-Ukraine war, Wagner fighters and regular members of the Russian Armed Forces are "given a free hand to conduct cruelty", according to Bellingcat's Christo Grozev.[4] The Ukrainian Prosecutor General is processing more than 93,000 incidents of potential war crimes in Ukraine; he said on 3 July 2023 that Wagner forces had committed "among the most severe crimes" within this number.[5]
- UN experts have said Wagner fighters in the Central African Republic carried out grave human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture and gender-based violence.[6] The Sentry, an investigative and policy NGO, accused Wagner fighters of creating "a climate of terror and fear".[7] In October 2021, the CAR national authorities admitted Wagner fighters' role in atrocities.[8]
- A UN fact-finding mission verified the involvement of Wagner fighters in an 'anti-terrorist' operation in Mali from December 2021, which, in March 2022, led
- ↑ Q42. See also Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism - Middlebury Institute of International Studies (WGN0023)
- ↑ A BBC documentary found that Wagner fighters in Libya had been involved in suspected war crimes, including the intentional killing of civilians. There are accusations of Wagner-linked civilian attacks in the Um Dafuq region of western Sudan. The lost tablet and the secret documents, BBC, August 2021 (accessed 16 July 2023); To counter Russia in Africa, Biden deploys a favored strategy, POLITICO, 7 May 2023. For Syria, see Man who filmed beheading of Syrian identified as Russian mercenary, The Guardian, 21 November 2019; Dossier Center (WGN0009) para 35
- ↑ Possible Evidence of Russian Atrocities: German Intelligence Intercepts Radio Traffic Discussing the Murder of Civilians in Bucha, DER SPIEGEL, 7 April 2022
- ↑ Qq40-41 [Christo Grozev]. On the involvement of both Wagner fighters and ordinary Russian armed forces in atrocities in Ukraine, see also Q41 [Sean McFatel, where he describes the "Russian policy" of "massacring civilians", and Q197 [Leo Docherty]
- ↑ 'Putin's comment on funding Wagner shows link to Ukraine, prosecutor says', Reuters, 3 July 2023
- ↑ Specifically, UN experts noted (among others) reports of mass summary executions, arbitrary detentions, torture, forced disappearances and displacement and indiscriminate targeting of civilian facilities and attacks on humanitarian actors. OHCHR, 'CAR: Experts alarmed by government's use of "Russian trainers", close contacts with UN peacekeepers', 31 March 2021 (accessed 8 July 2023). There are also reports of sexual and gender-based violence: Q6 [Sorcha MacLeod]. See also the Final report of the UN Panel of Experts on the Central African Republic extended pursuant to Security Council resolution 2536 (2020), paras 89-93, available in Letter dated 25 June 2021 from the Panel of Experts on the Central African Republic extended pursuant to resolution 2536 (2020) addressed to the President of the Security Council, 25 June 2021.
- ↑ The Sentry (WGN0017) para 18. See also Annex 2 in this evidence for further Wagner-alleged atrocities.
- ↑ 'Russia's Wagner Group committed atrocities in Central African Republic', The Times, 4 October 2021. See also Human Rights Watch, Central African Republic: Abuses by Russia-Linked Forces', 3 May 2022 (accessed 10 July 2023)
