The French parliament has called on the EU to formally label the Russian mercenary group Wagner as terrorists, as the UK reportedly prepares to do the same.
France’s parliament unanimously passed a non-binding resolution aimed at encouraging the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organisations.
“Wherever they work, Wagner members spread instability and violence,” MP Benjamin Haddad told parliament on Tuesday. “They kill and torture. They massacre and pillage. They intimidate and manipulate with almost total impunity.”
He said they were not simple mercenaries driven by an “appetite for money” but they “follow a broad strategy, from Mali to Ukraine, of supporting the aggressive policies of President [Vladimir] Putin’s regime towards our democracies”.
Being listed as a terrorist organisation means EU members could freeze assets of the Wagner group and its members, with European companies and citizens barred from dealing with the group.
Wagner mercenaries have spearheaded Russia’s months-long assault on Bakhmut in Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, thanked the French parliament and urged other countries to follow suit.
“Every manifestation of terrorism must be destroyed, and every terrorist must be convicted,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Times newspaper reported that after two months of building a legal case, Britain would also formally list Wagner as a terrorist organisation to increase pressure on Russia.
Citing a government source, the Times said the blacklisting was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks.
This would make it a criminal offence to belong to Wagner, attend its meetings, encourage support for it, or carry its logo in public, the Times said. It would impose financial sanctions on the group and there would be implications for Wagner’s ability to raise money if any funds went through British financial institutions.
Britain’s Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Wagner and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, have already been repeatedly sanctioned by the European Union and the UK.
Prigozhin had his assets in the European Union frozen in 2020 and was placed on a visa blacklist over the deployment of Wagner fighters to war-torn Libya, a decision he unsuccessfully appealed against.
The French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, conceded to lawmakers on Tuesday that legally the EU terrorist label would not have any “direct supplemental effect” on the group. But she said “we should not underestimate the symbolic importance of such a designation, nor the dissuasive effect that it could have on states tempted to turn” to Wagner.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed this report