{"id":1197,"date":"2023-09-07T02:57:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T02:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/uk-to-declare-russias-wagner-a-terrorist-organisation-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2023-09-07T02:57:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T02:57:06","slug":"uk-to-declare-russias-wagner-a-terrorist-organisation-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/uk-to-declare-russias-wagner-a-terrorist-organisation-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"UK to declare Russia’s Wagner a terrorist organisation | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nLONDON:
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Britain is set to declare the Russian mercenary Wagner Group to be a terrorist organisation, making it illegal to be a member or to support it, the government said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A draft order due to laid before parliament will allow Wagner’s assets to be categorised as terrorist property and seized, the interior ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Interior minister Suella Braverman described Wagner as “violent and destructive”. It had acted as “a military tool of Vladimir Putin’s Russia overseas,” she said.<\/p>\n

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wagner did not exist from a legal point of view.<\/p>\n

“There’s nothing to comment on,” he said when asked about the measure.<\/p>\n

Across Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa, Wagner has been involved in looting, torture and “barbarous murders”, the British statement said, calling it a threat to global security.<\/p>\n

Read also:<\/strong>\u00a0Putin orders Wagner fighters to sign oath of allegiance<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“They are terrorists, plain and simple – and this proscription order makes that clear in UK law,” Braverman said.<\/p>\n

The order is expected to come into force on Sept. 13, after which it would be a criminal offence to belong to or promote the group, arrange or address its meetings and carry its logo in public, punishable by up to 14 years in jail.<\/p>\n

David Lammy, the opposition Labour Party’s foreign affairs spokesman, said the move was “long overdue”. The government should now press for Putin to be prosecuted for his aggression, he said.<\/p>\n

Wagner has operated in Syria and a number of countries in northern and western Africa. It recruited thousands of convicts from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine, providing the main assault force for Russia’s 2022-2023 winter offensive there.<\/p>\n

In June, it mounted a brief mutiny in Russia, condemned as treason by Putin, and on Aug. 23 its boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and top lieutenants were killed in a plane crash.<\/p>\n

Britain sanctioned Prigozhin in 2020, Wagner as a whole in March 2022, and in July this year sanctioned individuals and businesses with links to the group in the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n