Amy Mackinnon
From Mali to Syria to Ukraine, the Kremlin-backed mercenary group Wagner has been accused of torturing, raping, and murdering civilians, prompting an effort on Washington’s Capitol Hill to brand the group as a foreign terrorist organization, putting it on a par with the Islamic State.
But the State Department, worried about the implications for U.S. diplomacy in a host of African countries where Wagner is known to operate, is quietly pushing back, according to congressional sources and former government officials. The concern is that such a move could jeopardize U.S. outreach to a handful of already unstable African countries, such as Mali and the Central African Republic, that could spiral into chaos if the Biden administration goes after Wagner too hard.
The group, which Russian President Vladimir Putin recently acknowledged was funded by the Russian state, has played an integral role in the invasion of Ukraine, spearheading the monthslong assault on the eastern town of Bakhmut. In Africa, where the group has been engaged in a range of activities including security, gold mining, and political campaigns, Wagner operatives have been accused of atrocities against civilians—including rape, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
The tussle in Washington over whether to formally label Wagner a terrorist group underscores the fine line trod by the Biden administration as it seeks to isolate Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine while balancing the global ripple effects of the war. This caution has, at times, prompted critics both in the United States and in Europe to accuse the administration of being overly cautious on pushing back against Moscow. A bipartisan group of senators tabled legislation earlier this year that would force the Biden administration to label Wagner a foreign terrorist organization, an official government designation that seeks to isolate the group and prohibits Americans from providing it with financial or material support.
“War crimes should be punished harshly,” said Republican Sen. Roger Wicker. “While the Wagner Group and Russian military may be struggling, we cannot sit idly by as shadow armies continue murdering civilians and spreading violence. We have a duty to hold them accountable and show our adversaries how we respond to these threats.”
The group, lead by the longtime Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, was labeled a transnational criminal organization by the U.S. Treasury in January. Experts note that there is no singular entity known as the Wagner Group. Rather, it is a sprawling network of shell companies and shadowy operatives whose services range from all-out warfare to troll factories. A terror designation could spur U.S. intelligence agencies and prosecutors to devote more time and resources to cauterizing Wagner’s global networks, according to testimony by Jason Blazakis, who led the State Department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designation Office for more than a decade.
“With additional analysts devoted to spending time uncovering Prigozhin’s shell companies, it increases the likelihood that the United States can shed more light on the Wagner’s money trail,” Blazakis said in written testimony to the bipartisan Helsinki Commission.
The group is known to be active in Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya, Sudan, and Syria. Blacklisting the mercenary group could give pause to other countries in Africa contemplating working with Wagner. According to experts, factions of the military junta in power in Burkina Faso have advocated bringing in Wagner, while the group may also look to take advantage of the conflict in Sudan to expand its presence.
Branding the outfit as terrorists “would raise the reputational risk even higher on those countries contemplating a relationship with Wagner,” said Cameron Hudson, who served as the director of African affairs on the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration.
Putting Moscow’s mercenary outfit of choice on par with the Islamic State and al Qaeda would send a powerful statement of condemnation. But the Biden administration has sought to hit the brakes on the proposal, citing diplomatic and bureaucratic concerns, according to two congressional staffers and two former State Department officials familiar with conversations on the matter. Administration officials have been cautious to avoid a repeat of the Cold War era, when the United States and the Soviet Union vied for influence on the African continent, and the State Department has voiced concerns that branding the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization could further alienate countries such as Mali and the Central African Republic.
“African leaders don’t want to make zero-sum choices between the West and Russia because of some of these lessons and deep sensitivities over sovereignty and the violent legacies of colonization,” said Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa earlier this month.
The State Department did not respond to an interview request for this article.
While the administration has a range of sanctions options available to curb the group’s ability to operate, a terror designation could have wide-ranging ramifications for African nations.
“It’s a very blunt instrument that paints very broadly,” said Peter Pham, who served as the special envoy to the Sahel region of Africa during the Trump administration.
Critics of the proposal argue that it could hamper humanitarian operations in countries already grappling with crises. A terror designation’s prohibition on providing material or financial support to the group could hamper aid agencies’ ability to negotiate road or air access to areas of a country under Wagner control. It’s happened before, as with al Qaeda-linked terrorists active in the Horn of Africa.
“There is real precedent and consequence to this,” said Hudson, who noted that the terror designation on al-Shabab has hindered relief efforts in Somalia, where more than a quarter of a million people died in a famine between 2010 and 2012. The move could also prompt banks and companies to withdraw from countries where the group operates, further compounding the woes of already fragile economies.
The Wagner Group has not been a net contributor to stability and security in countries such as Mali, which is still grappling with the withdrawal of a French-led counterinsurgency operation last year. But the rapid departure of groups that, however brutally, do at times fight terrorists could precipitate a rapid downward spiral in a country that has grappled with insurgent groups for over a decade, said Pauline Bax, the deputy director of the Africa program at the International Crisis Group.
“Nobody wants jihadist groups sieging Bamako—neither the West nor the region,” she said. The effort to brand the group as a terror organization, Bax said, is “very much based around what’s happening in Ukraine, and is less based on what’s happening in Africa.”
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