ARGUMENT: THE WAGNER GROUP AS FTOIt’s Time to Designate Wagner Group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

Published 15 November 2022

The international sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine have not targeted a key component in the Kremlin’s toolbox for international terror and coercion: the private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, which is owned by Vladimir Putin confidant Yevgeny Prigozhin. Wagner Group’s activities in Ukraine have been notorious since 2014, but they also have had a persistent presence in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), and—most recently—Mali.

The international sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine have not targeted a key component in the Kremlin’s toolbox for international terror and coercion: the private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, which is owned by Vladimir Putin confidant Yevgeny Prigozhin.

James Petrila and Phil Wasielewski write in Lawfare that in the months since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the international community has responded with a wide range of international sanctions intended to isolate Russia’s economy from the industrial world and punish individuals and institutions for their complicity in the war. “Yet so far, the United States has missed an opportunity to designate Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA),” they write, adding:

Wagner Group and its military leader, Dmitry Utkin, have been subject to Treasury Department sanctions under the authorities of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) since June 2017. The specific designation of Wagner as an FTO under the AEDPA would be an appropriate response not only for war crimes that Wagner Group has committed in occupied Ukraine from 2014 until today but also for the documented crimes that it has committed throughout the Middle East and Africa. These crimes have occured as Wagner has enriched the Kremlin and served as a covert instrument of Russian foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. 

In addition to acting as an overt condemnation of the unlawful acts Wagner Group has already committed, the FTO designation would make it a crime under the U.S. material support to terrorism statutes to provide any form of material support to Wagner Group going forward. This would increase the risk of potential violation of U.S. law to the myriad financial institutions and logistics companies whose support is critical to Wagner Group activities throughout the Middle East and Africa. Treasury Department sanctions that list Wagner Group, Prigozhin, and Utkin as specially designated nationals under the IEEPA do carry a significant bite by freezing and blocking assets in the U.S., but designation as an FTO would bring a critical component of U.S. criminal law into play.