Ukraine issues its own threat to Russian ships, saying they could face the same fate as sunken warship Moskva

The United Kingdom has added individuals and groups with links to Russia's Wagner Group who are operating in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali to its sanctions list, its foreign ministry said Thursday.

In the latest update of the UK sanctions list, the ministry added seven new designations under CAR sanctions regime, five new designations under the Sudan sanctions regime and one new designation under the Mali sanctions regime. 

Among those sanctioned were Vitalii Viktorovitch Perfilev, head of the Wagner Group in the CAR, and Ivan Aleksandrovitch, the head in Mali. Both will be subject to an asset freeze and travel ban.

Wagner's African footprint: As Joyce M. Davis, president and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, wrote in an opinion piece for CNN:

Since it first emerged in 2014 during Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Wagner Group has operated in at least a half-dozen African countries, with a presence of some 5,000-strong across the continent, including fighting forces, former convicts and foreign nationals.

Much more than a mere contingent of mercenary troops, Wagner is a complicated network of businesses intertwined with fighting forces, with operations intricately linked with Russia’s military and intelligence community. But for the past several days, the whereabouts of the mercurial man who leads the vast operation have been unknown.

On Wednesday, a video emerged that appeared to show Prigozhin greeting his fighters in Belarus, in what would be his first public appearance since he led an armed rebellion in Russia last month.

The question remains however, what will now become of Wagner’s immense Africa operation that provided security services and paramilitary assistance and launched disinformation campaigns for troubled regimes in the CAR, Libya, Mali and Sudan?

Read the full opinion piece here: