UK postpones Wagner Group blacklisting because of Prigozhin's mutiny and Putin's statements

The authorities of the United Kingdom have postponed the recognition of the Wagner group as a terrorist organisation due to the attempted mutiny of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the subsequent remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Source: The Times

The article says that the legal basis for including the Wagner Private Military Company on the list of terrorists was complicated from the very beginning because the mercenaries acted as a "paramilitary formation".

The Times writes that everything became even more complicated after the attempted mutiny, the sudden reversal of the mercenaries, the amnesty of Prigozhin, who concluded an agreement with the Kremlin, and also after Putin's statements regarding the recognition of state funding of the Wagner Group.

The outlet's sources say that after Putin's public admission that Wagner's group was fully financed by the Kremlin and had received tens of billions of roubles of state funds over the previous year, adding mercenaries to the list of terrorist organisations would be tantamount to banning the activities of the Russian government institutions.

This would be highly unusual and involve a number of diplomatic and legal complications, the sources added.

At the same time, the media claims that Minister of Internal Affairs Suella Braverman and Minister of Security Tom Tugendhat still intend to find a way to declare the Wagner group a terrorist organisation.

Background: 

• Last week, the UK government was sharply criticised by the parliamentary foreign affairs committee for underestimating the threat posed by the Russian Wagner group.
• On 20 July, the UK implemented sanctions against 13 individuals and businesses linked to the actions of the Russian Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) in Mali, Central African Republic and Sudan.

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