UK government ‘complacent’ in countering growing risk from Wagner Group

Published

2 years ago

July 26, 2023

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The UK government’s sanctions targeting Wagner have been “underwhelming in the extreme” and it should act faster to exploit the mercenary group’s current weakness, a new report has found.

MPs on the foreign affairs committee say ministers have taken their eye off the ball over the last decade as Wagner expanded its reach across Syria, Ukraine and Africa and have called on the government to proscribe Wagner as a terrorist organisation.

The committee’s report, entitled ‘Guns for Gold: the Wagner Network exposed’, details the nefarious, destabilising nature of Wagner, especially in Africa, where the group makes most of its money, and highlights what it describes as government complacency in failing to recognise and act in a coordinated fashion to mitigate the risk that Wagner, as a slippery Russian proxy, represents.

Last week the UK sanctioned a further 13 individuals and entities associated with Wagner’s operations in Africa, which brings it more in line with sanctions regimes in the US and EU, the Committee Chairman Alicia Kearns told Sky News.

The report had criticised the UK’s efforts to sanction individuals and entities associated with Wagner’s wide-ranging network saying they lagged behind those of the EU and US and argues that government is not equipped to track Wagner’s activity as it transforms in the aftermath of Evgeny Prigozhin’s coup.

The report says the UK’s efforts to sanction individuals and entities associated with Wagner’s wide-ranging network have been poor compared with those of the EU and US and says it is not equipped to track Wagner’s activity as it transforms in the aftermath of Evgeny Prigozhin‘s coup.

A lack of clarity as to what exactly the Wagner network represents means Wagner-linked entities may still have access to UK financial markets, the report claims, and the tendency to view the group through the prism of Ukraine has stymied the government’s ability to protect the international order and UK interests as the network expands.

Wagner has spread its tentacles incredibly fast across the African continent, providing an array of services from counter-insurgency operations to security assistance, military training and political influence campaigns in exchange mostly for hugely lucrative mineral concessions which in turn bolster Russia’s heavily sanctioned state coffers.

The Kremlin appears to have recognised that despite Prigozhin’s waywardness, it cannot afford from a foreign policy perspective to dismantle the group’s network in countries like the Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan and Libya.

This is why it appears, at least in part, that Evgeny Prigozhin has been allowed to sit easy for now in Belarus, with Wagner forces taking a break from their Ukraine activity to focus instead on Africa.

African countries meanwhile continue to rely heavily on the Wagner model to prop up weak and unstable regimes.

‘State capture’ in Africa

The Central African Republic (CAR) has just announced that Wagner will be providing security around this Sunday’s referendum which seeks constitutional changes to enable President Touadera to run for a third term (echoes of Vladimir Putin there).

The report describes the CAR’s reliance on Wagner as an example of ‘state capture’ and a warning of what may happen elsewhere given the country’s continued and bloody instability.

The UK should make it clear to countries looking to engage with malign PMCs like Wagner, the report says, that the downsides of instability, corruption and a tendency towards extreme violence outweigh any perceived benefit and that cooperation may carry financial and diplomatic consequences.

Russia, alongside China, has deepened its influence in Africa as the UK has been preoccupied with security threats closer to home.

France has been forced out of the CAR and Mali as actors like Wagner assert their influence in these deeply unstable countries. The UK’s stabilisation efforts in Libya seem like policy from a bygone era.

Despite the obvious priority afforded Ukraine as it battles Russia’s unconscionable invasion, this report argues the UK must up its game if it is to keep on top of the significant threat that Wagner continues to represent to UK security interests across the globe.

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Israel launches ground assault on central Gazan city, says charity

Published

3 hours ago

July 21, 2025

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Israel launches ground assault on central Gazan city, says charity

Medical aid has been suspended to a city in central Gaza due to an Israeli ground assault there, a charity has said.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said the Israeli military had launched a ground invasion of the city of Deir al Balah this morning.

It added that thousands of displaced people are living in the area, including MAP staff, and the latest orders by Israel “directly endanger vital humanitarian and primary healthcare sites”.

It said the “forced displacement orders do not allow for the transport of lifesaving medical equipment or supplies” and this was “further obstructing efforts to provide emergency assistance”.

Steve Cutts, MAP’s interim CEO, said: “This latest forced displacement order is yet another attack on humanitarian operations and a deliberate attempt to sever the last remaining threads of Gaza’s health and aid system.

“MAP now has to suspend critical services we have been providing to the Palestinian population, including a primary health clinic that serves hundreds of civilians every day. With Israel’s systematic targeting of health and aid workers, no one is safe.

“Not only are we prevented from carrying out our lifesaving work to support Palestinians, we are also unable to protect our own teams.”

Gaza medics said at least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in tank shelling that hit three mosques and eight houses, Reuters news agency reported.

Israeli sources said the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had previously stayed out of Deir Al Balah because they suspect Hamas might be holding hostages there, Reuters added.

At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in Gaza are believed to still be alive.

‘People were simply trying to access food’

The UN food agency has accused Israel of using tanks, snipers and other weapons to fire on a crowd of Palestinians seeking food aid.

The World Food Programme (WFP) condemned the violence that erupted in northern Gaza as Palestinians tried to reach a convoy of trucks carrying food.

Gaza’s health ministry said at least 80 people were killed in the incident.

The Israeli military said it fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat” – and questioned the number of those killed as reported by the Palestinians.

The WFP statement said the incident resulted in the loss of “countless lives” – and how the crowd surrounding its convoy “came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire”.

“These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation,” it added.

Earlier, the WFP said that shortly after entering Gaza, a convoy of 25 trucks carrying food aid encountered “massive crowds of hungry civilians” who then came under gunfire.

“WFP reiterates that any violence involving civilians seeking humanitarian aid is completely unacceptable,” it said.

UNRWA, the UN refugee agency dedicated to Palestinians, said in a social media post it was receiving messages from Gaza warning of starvation, including from its own staff, as food prices have increased 40-fold.

“Meanwhile, just outside Gaza, stockpiled in warehouses UNRWA has enough food for the entire population for over three months. Lift the siege and let aid in safely and at scale,” it said.

In Khan Younis earlier on Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least five people in a tent, including a man, his wife, and their two children, medics said.

Israel is yet to comment on the incidents.

Meanwhile, Pope Leo warned against the “indiscriminate use of force” and the “forced mass displacement” of people in Gaza in a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, the Vatican said in a statement.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

The Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to health officials.

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At least 16 dead after plane crashes into college campus in Bangladesh

Published

5 hours ago

July 21, 2025

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At least 16 dead after plane crashes into college campus in Bangladesh

At least 16 people have died after a Bangladesh air force plane crashed into a college campus, according to an official.

The aircraft crashed into the campus of Milestone School and College in Uttara, in the northern area of the capital Dhaka, where students were taking tests or attending regular classes.

The Bangladesh military’s public relations department added that the aircraft was an F-7 BGI, and had taken off at 1.06pm local time before crashing shortly after.

Video shows fire and smoke rising from the crash site, with hundreds looking on.

English language news outlet The Daily Star reported that more than 100 were injured based on data from various hospitals.

Bengali-language daily newspaper Prothom Alo said that most of the injured were students with burn injuries.

Citing the duty officer at the fire service control room, Prothom Alo also reported that the plane had crashed on the roof of the college canteen.

Rafiqa Taha, a 16-year-old student at the school who was not present at the time of the crash, told the Associated Press that the school has around 2,000 students.

“I was terrified watching videos on TV,” she added. “My God! It’s my school.”

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30,000 trapped inside Syria’s besieged city despite ceasefire – as humanitarian crisis unfolds

Published

15 hours ago

July 21, 2025

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30,000 trapped inside Syria's besieged city despite ceasefire - as humanitarian crisis unfolds

The main road entering the besieged Syrian city of Sweida from the West has changed dramatically over twelve hours.

A bulldozer, parked on the side of the road, has been used to create several berms to form a sand barrier around 25km (16 miles) from the city centre.

Dozens of Syrian security forces were standing in lines in front of the barricades when we arrived, and there were forces further up the road stopping vehicles from going any further.

The Arab tribal fighters we’d seen fighting furiously inside the city the day before were now all camped alongside the road. Some were sleeping on the back of their pick-ups.

“We’re not giving up,” one shouted to us as we walked towards the checkpoint.

The ceasefire agreement between Druze leaders who’re bunkered down inside the city and the Bedoins – and the tribal fighters who’d flock to join them – has frustrated some.

Some of them, waiting with guns slung over their backs, are itching to return to battle. But for now, tribal leaders have instructed them to hold fire.

How long that will last is probably key to Syria’s future and whether it can be a peaceful one.

Khalaf al Modhi, the head of a group of tribes called United Tribes, told the group of fighters: “We are not against the Druze. We are not here to kill the Druze.”

But he spent many minutes castigating the senior Druze cleric inside Sweida whom many of the tribes see as the agitator behind the violent clashes.

Hikmat Al Hijiri is head of a Druze faction that is deeply suspicious of the new government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa and is resisting ceding power to Damascus.

The retreat of the Arab tribes from the city centre means the Druze militia under Hijiri’s control are now the ones deciding who goes in or out of the city.

About 30,000 mostly Druze people are thought to be trapped inside the city and surrounding towns, with no electricity, little internet and dwindling supplies of food and water.

The humanitarian situation is dramatically worsening by the day. But at the time of writing, there were still no agreed safe corridors to bring out those pinned inside.

On top of this, there are nearly 130,000 people displaced and forced out of their homes because of the fighting, according to UN estimates.

Maintaining the ceasefire is key to ensuring solutions are found to help those suffering, and quickly. It’s also the most serious challenge facing the new Syrian leader and his interim government.

The level of distrust between the Hijiri-led Druze faction and the new government is strong and deep. So much so that the Druze leaders have refused to accept truckloads of aid organised by any of the government outlets.

The new Syrian leader has struggled to convince the country’s minorities that their safety under his leadership is assured.

Druze civilians and human rights activists reported mass killings and executions of Druze by government troops who were sent in last week to quell the latest clashes between the Druze and Arab Bedoins who have been at odds for many years.

Government forces pulled out of the city only after Israel unleashed a spate of airstrikes, saying they were defending the Druze. The bombings killed hundreds of Syrian troops.

But with the withdrawal of the government troops, the Arab Bedoin population said the city’s Druze militia embarked on a string of revenge atrocities.

That in turn led to thousands of tribal fighters massing from around the country to defend their Arab brethren.

When we were inside the city, we saw multiple corpses lying on the streets, and many appeared to have been killed with a shot to the head.

Homes and businesses are still burning after mass pillaging as fighters retreated.

And now, there is a growing humanitarian disaster unfolding.

Additional reporting by camera operator Garwen McLuckie, specialist producer Chris Cunningham, as well as Syrian producers Mahmoud Mossa and Ahmed Rahhal.