On Wednesday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland described Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian military group Wagner fighting in Ukraine, as a “war criminal”.
Garland confirmed during a Senate hearing that the Justice Department has been helping Ukraine investigate possible war crimes since the war began, including the activities of the Wagner military group.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland
At the hearing, the minister said: “Prigozhin, who is running this matter, is, in my opinion, a war criminal.”
He added, “It may be inappropriate as a judge for me to say this before all the evidence has been obtained. But I think we have more than enough evidence at this point to justify my statement.”
He continued: “That group responsible for attacks on Ukrainians in Donbass, including by bringing in prisoners from Russian prisons – what they are doing is unbelievable.”
Ukraine’s Attorney General Andrei Kostin had previously announced that Kiev was investigating Prigozhin for war crimes, and Garland confirmed that the United States was helping Ukraine in its investigations.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and although Wagner operates independently of the Russian army, it plays a major combat role in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin with Vladimir Putin
In January, the United States officially designated Wagner a “transnational criminal organization” and included it in a list with Italian mafia groups and Japanese and Russian organized crime.
The designation allows for broader sanctions against the group’s sprawling global network, which includes armed operations as well as commercial interests in Africa.
And members of Congress are pressing President Joe Biden’s administration to designate Wagner a “terrorist organization”.
The US Department of Justice indicted Prigozhin in 2018 for interfering in the US elections through the Internet Research Agency, which he runs and is based in St. Petersburg.
