Search Results for: mercenaries

Mystery continues to shroud the deal that saw Yevgeny Prigozhin call off his mercenary forces as they marched largely undeterred toward Moscow on Saturday. Kremlin officials have announced that Russia would not pursue criminal charges against the Wagner leader, whom Russian leader Vladimir Putin had accused a day prior of treason, but all sides have [...]

Wagner troops abruptly reversed course after advancing through southern Russia toward Moscow on Saturday, bringing an apparent end to an acute civil crisis that had boiled over between the mercenary forces and the Kremlin. Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner Private Military Company, announced Saturday: In the course of a day, we marched to 200 [...]

Multiple Russian regions declared strict security measures on Saturday as Wagner forces continued their advance toward Moscow. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin issued a flurry of announcements related to heightened restrictions in the capital, as regional authorities in Lipetsk acknowledged that Wagner forces had entered their territory in the hours after the mercenary forces claimed to [...]

Russian president Vladimir Putin accused mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin of treason on Saturday as the latter’s forces claimed the southern city of Rostov-on-Don. “What we are facing is indeed treason. Excessive ambitions and personal interests have led to betrayal — the betrayal of their own country, of their own nation, and what’s more, of the [...]

Russian authorities have initiated criminal proceedings against mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on grounds of incitement to armed rebellion, Russian state-controlled media reported Friday, citing security and anti-terrorism authorities. Earlier Friday, Wagner mercenary group chief Prigozhin — a longtime associate of President Vladimir Putin — released a series of videos accusing Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu [...]

The Russian State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s Parliament, voted on Wednesday to give its preliminary support to legislation that will permit its army to sign contracts with suspects or criminal convicts to take part in the war in Ukraine. According to the State Duma, the proposed legislation would authorize the country’s Ministry of [...]

In jurisprudential matters, whether national or international, precedent remains vitally important. When former (and possibly future) US President Donald J. Trump issued illegal pardons to selected American officials for established crimes against international law, the consequences reverberated in other countries. Now, with still-mounting Russian crimes against Ukraine –  crimes of war; crimes against peace; and crimes [...]

In the wake of a damning UN report linking Russian mercenaries to a Malian massacre, the US State Department has said the Wagner Group may be using Mali as a secret arms depot to bolster Russian forces in Ukraine.  The Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian nationalist firebrand and longtime associate of President [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Tuesday condemned audio recordings that emerged over the weekend, which appear to show figures connected to both sides of the war in Ukraine ordering combatants not to take prisoners of war or else to execute those captured. As originally reported by the Kiev Independent, Wagner [...]

This article is the first in a series on attacks on the rule of law. The rule of law is a political philosophy premised on the promise that all citizens, leaders, and institutions are accountable to the same laws, guaranteed through processes, practices, and norms that work together to support the equality of all citizens [...]