A video surfaced on social media showing 2 #Wagner mercenaries torturing, beheading & lynching-on-fire a #Syria -n army defector in 2017, 'just for fun.' The report also revealed that at least one of the Russian-speaking men in the video had fought in the embattled region of Donbas in eastern Ukraine before traveling to Syria to work for a contingent affiliated to the Wagner Group. At 1 a.m., with the artillery fire dwindling, the team of Marines and Green Berets pulled up to the Conoco outpost and began firing. The day began with little hint of the battle that was about to unfold. The video, which appears to have been taken in 2017, showed several men in military-style clothing beating a prisoner with a sledgehammer, then beheading him, amputating his arms with a sappers trowel and setting his body on fire using gasoline or another accelerant. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any connections to Russian private military security contractors operating in Syria. A billboard in Bangui with the slogan "The Central African Republic is hand in hand with Russia" (file photo), published what it claimed was the victim's name. EvroPolis was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2018 for being owned or controlled by Prigozhin. Close to Russian government but nominally independent, private military contractors give the Kremlin a degree of plausible deniability and have complicated efforts by Western policymakers to formulate a response. A CAR radio station,Lengo Sengo, was also sanctioned on charges of spreading disinformation on Wagner's behalf. Commanders of the rival militaries had long steered clear of the other by speaking through often-used deconfliction telephone lines. Yevgeny Prigozhin is the man behind a mercenary force fighting for Russia in Ukraine. In Syria, A Mutilated Corpse, Video Evidence, And New Scrutiny Captured wounded fighters of Russias Wagner mercenary group: Ilya, 30, left, and Mikhail, 35, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine on Monday. Their structure allows them to have plausible deniability and to create distance between the Russian state and the group, she said. Who Is Vagner? But the Russian government has preferred to keep Wagners actions obscured, even hiding preparations for funerals when members of the private military company have been killed abroad. The documents reveal that the company. With Putins help, Assad has constrained the capacity of the United Nations to deliver health supplies in opposition-controlled territory, which faces rising risk of the coronavirus. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance. A father of four from Syrias Deir Ezzor governorate, Bouta travelled to Lebanon in 2016 in search of work in the construction industry as large swaths of the region came under Islamic State control. The Wagner Group has achieved near-mythical status in the Russian and international press in recent years for its role in Russias interference efforts abroad, but there is no evidence that a single registered entity called Wagner exists, said Jack Margolin, a senior analyst with the nonprofit Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), which provided analytical support for the report. One person sanctioned by the EU was described as "the security advisor" to PresidentFaustin Archange-Touadera. Its not clear how the videos ended up online or why the perpetrators chose to document the killing. The Ukraine Known colloquially as the Wagner Group, the contingent has been linked to a network of Russian firms that U.S. and European authorities say are financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key player in Putins inner circle known as Putins chef. Although the Wagner Group has been implicated in several violations of international law, including skirting a UN arms embargo in Libya, the Moscow legal filing on Boutas case marks the first time that any official complaint has been brought in court against the private security contingent in connection with an alleged war crime. Delivered Wednesday. Weekly update on whats driving U.S. national security policy. Prigozhin, who had been charged by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller in early 2018, was slapped with new U.S. Treasury Department sanctions on September 30, in an announcement that also included photographs of three jets and a 122-foot yacht that purportedly belongs to Prigozhin or his companies. The small team of American troops was not harmed. Is the United States becoming protectionist? This has forced us, as human rights defenders, to turn to Russian investigative authorities, Novikov said. But beyond the goals of one leader in Moscow, it is also clear that Ukraine has suffered horrors of a historic nature. Is the Biden administrations China policy too hawkish? Mercenaries from the Wagner Group in Bangui, Central African Republic, in 2019. relying on tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts. At this point, members of the group Bouta was traveling with notified Boutas brother-in-law, who was in Lebanon at the time, that the Syrian military had taken Bouta into custody. The Paris-based Syrian investigative news site, Want to read more on this topic or region? The reaction team sped toward the fight. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, said he had not had time to watch the video. None of the Americans at the small outpost in eastern Syria about 40 by the end of the firefight were harmed. Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with. A monthly digest of the top articles read by FP subscribers. Their faces are uncovered. "The advent of the digital age means [such companies'] activities are often hidden in plain sight, and disinformation is no longer a fail-safe remedy when the secrecy of covert operations is compromised.". Wagner's fighters appeared in Libya in April 2019 when they joined the forces of a rebel general, Khalifa Haftar, after he launched an attack on the UN-backed Their shadowy existence allows Russia to downplay its battlefield casualties and distance itself from atrocities committed by Wagner fighters, observers say. Keep up with the world without stopping yours. The group's exact African footprint is disputed, but it's growing. For its part, Washington has made a series of policy choices over the last few years that can be summed Show moreup as tough on Beijing, even seeking to contain the rise of the worlds second-biggest economy. At worst, officials and experts have said, it could plunge both countries into bloody conflict. Is it? In the days leading up to the attack, and on opposite sides of the Euphrates River, Russia and the United States were backing separate offensives against the Islamic State in Syrias oil-rich Deir al-Zour Province, which borders Iraq. This has absolutely no relation to Russian soldiers, no matter what is being published about it, said Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin. Russia Forced Me to Flee. Their presence, in the eastern region known as Donbas that is home to Russia-backed separatist groups, raises concerns, given the groups history. Opponents of the dark money paramilitary outfit hope an attack through the courtswhich they expect to take all the way to European Court of Human Rightswill expose the scale of the abuses carried out by the shadowy forces used to conceal the Kremlins off-the-books military adventures all over the world. Bouta later got in touch with his brother-in-law directly and told him that members of the Syrian Arab Army had taken him to the al-Draij military camp, a well-known deployment hub for Wagner Group fighters. The European Unionon Saturday announced additional sanctions against Russia's Wagner Group mercenary and economic organization for "human rights abuses" committed in the Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan and Ukraine. They would face asset freezes and a travel ban. Its a really adaptable network, which makes it hard to target, but also hard to talk about, said Margolin of C4ADS. Russian who filmed prisoner being tortured to death worked for firm with links to Kremlin. What can we glean from the current state of play on the battlefield? Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent. The prospect of Russian military forces and American troops colliding has long been feared as the Cold War adversaries take opposing sides in Syrias seven-year civil war. As the videos of Boutas torture and beheading were circulated, they became a rallying point for the social networks that have coalesced around Russias mercenary activity abroad. Right now in Syria, were in the most aggressive E.W. The incident will serve to further blacken the reputation of Wagner, which was founded by a businessman close to Vladimir Putin. Mr. Utkin is said to have chosen Wagner to honor the composer, who was a favorite of Hitlers. Lost in the desert, he appears to have sought refuge in al-Shaer gas field, where he was later tortured and killed. Investigative paper wants atrocities of alleged Russian mercenaries in Syria probed after graphic VIDEO According to a report this monthon Wagner by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the CAR is Wagner's biggest African base of operations. Wagner forces have appeared in Ukraine, presumably to fight alongside Russian troops in Mr. Putins war. Kremlin-backed mercenary soldiers who worked for the Wagner Group could be tested in the Russian courts for the very first time after an all-star team of human rights lawyers filed a case in Moscow accusing the militants of the torture and beheading of a man in Syria. Companies linked to the Wagner group are snapping up oil and gas leaseswith an eye to pumping influence, not oil. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in Pretoria on Monday for talks with one of Moscow's most important allies in Africa. Mercenary activity that enables and secures these business interests has become the most visible manifestation of these networks. The legal case in Moscow turns on four separate video clips depicting several Russian-speaking men beating, decapitating, and burning a badly mutilated man at the al-Shaer gas plant, a central node in a multimillion-dollar joint oil and gas deal forged between the Syrian government owned General Petroleum Corporation and Stroytransgaz, a Russian state-run hydrocarbon engineering firm headed by Gennady Timchenko, a longtime Putin associate. In a legal criminal complaint announced Monday on behalf of the victim, Muhammad Hamdi Bouta Taha al-Abdullah, attorneys representing the victims brother allege that six Russian citizens who worked on a contract to secure a Russian-Syrian operated gas plant were behind the 2017 killing. But Medvedev said he wasn't afraid. Late last November, videos of a gruesome killing went viral on Russian social networks. Vagner is one of the best-known of several Russian private military companies that have come into being over the past decade. Hes a graduate of Harvards Davis Center and a recipient of New York University's Reporting Award and the Fulbright Alistair Cooke Journalism Award. New Report Exposes Brutal Methods of Russias Wagner Group. Create an FP account to save articles to read later and in the FP mobile app. Former President Obasanjo warns: Danger looming ahead., Report: In the video, Nuzhin was shown lying down with his head taped to a brick wall as an unidentified man in combat clothing hits him with a sledgehammer. They beat his extremities with a sledgehammer before decapitating him, setting his body on fire and posing for photographs with his remains. Mali's ruling junta last year forced French troops out of the country soon after committing a coup and welcomed in Wagner forces. You may opt out at any time. 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