\n The US justice chief on Wednesday branded Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia's mercenary Wagner military force fighting in Ukraine, a war criminal.\n<\/p>\n
\n Attorney General Merrick Garland told a Senate hearing that the Justice Department is helping Ukraine investigate war crimes allegedly committed since Russia's invasion, including by the semi-private Wagner military group.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Mr. Prigozhin, who runs this thing, is in my view a war criminal,\" Garland told the hearing.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Maybe that's inappropriate for me to say as a judge before getting all the evidence. But I think we have more than sufficient evidence at this point for me to feel that way.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"That group, which is responsible for the attacks on the Ukrainians in the Donbass, including by bringing in prisoners from Russian prison camps -- it's just an unfathomable what they are doing.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Ukraine's prosecutor general Andriy Kostin has said that Kyiv is investigating Prigozhin for war crimes, and Garland said the United States is aiding Ukraine in its probes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Prigozhin has been a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and although Wagner operates mostly independently from the Russian army, it has had a key role in the assault on Ukraine.\n<\/p>\n
\n In January the United States formally designated Wagner as a transnational criminal organization, putting it in league with Italian mafia groups and Japanese and Russian organized crime.\n<\/p>\n
\n The designation allows wider sanctions on the group's sprawling global network, which includes mercenary operations as well as businesses in Africa.\n<\/p>\n
\n US legislators are pressing the administration of President Joe Biden to designate Wagner a terrorist group.\n<\/p>\n
\n Prigozhin was indicted by the justice department in 2018 for interference in US elections by the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which he also controls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US justice chief on Wednesday branded Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia's mercenary Wagner military force fighting in Ukraine, a war criminal. Attorney General Merrick Garland told a Senate hearing that the Justice Department is helping Ukraine investigate war crimes allegedly committed since Russia's invasion, including by the semi-private Wagner military group. \"Mr. Prigozhin, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-113187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n