BBC News:
The US will designate Russia’s Wagner group, which is believed to have thousands of mercenaries in Ukraine, a “transnational criminal organisation”.
It will also impose fresh sanctions on the group and its support network next week, the White House said.
“[It is] committing atrocities and human rights abuses in Ukraine and elsewhere,” national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday.
He added that there were now some 50,000 Wagner mercenaries in Ukraine.
The new designation will allow the US government to apply wider sanctions against the paramilitary group, which has also operated in Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic, among other hotspots.
According to Mr Kirby, approximately 80% of the Wagner troops deployed to Ukraine were drawn from prisons.
He added that the group has become a rival to Russia’s regular military forces and that the US believes are “mounting tensions” between Russian officials and Wagner’s controversial founder, businessman and Vladimir Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Mr Kirby said that US intelligence photographs show Russian rail cars entering North Korea, where they allegedly picked up infantry rockets and missiles for later use by Wagner forces.
