Inner workings of Wagner mercenary group revealed amid call to add organization to US terror list

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Wagner Group chief exiled to Belarus after Russia-targeted uprising

Retired brigadier general Anthony Tata joined 'Fox & Friends Weekend' to discuss his take on the Wagner Group's retreat and key players involved in the group. 

Russia’s heavily-armed mercenary Wagner force’s fleeting rebellion—and its scorched earth policies from Ukraine to Syria to sub-Saharan Africa—sparked a call on Sunday from The Soufan Center, a non-profit research organization, for the Biden administration to consider designating Wagner a foreign terrorist entity.

Its new 44-page report titled ‘Wagner Group: The Evolution of a Private Army,’ the Soufan Center study states "The U.S. government and allies should consider designating Wagner an FTO [ Foreign Terrorist Organization]. Building on the recent U.S. designation of the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization, the United States should consider designating it as a foreign terrorist organization, particularly in light of its activities outside conflict zones, where its behavior is subject to international humanitarian law as a non-state armed group."

When asked if the Biden administration plans to sanction Wagner as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital "As a general matter, we do not preview potential sanctions actions."

BIDEN ADMIN, FOREIGN OFFICIALS REACT AS WAGNER GROUP MAKES ‘MARCH FOR JUSTICE’ TOWARDS MOSCOW

A split image shows Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin; a Wagner group patrol in an area near a tank in Rostov-on-Don; and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the center (Prigozhin Press Service via AP/STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images/GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)

The Wagner Group was founded in 2014 by Russian Oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who just fled to Belarus, and was closely linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin before he announced his march to Moscow with a contingent of 25,000 mercenaries. Prigozhin pulled the plug on the march to apparently avoid bloodshed. Wagner’s total force is estimated to have more than 50,000 members.

The report notes, "Wagner’s willingness to use force and target civilians makes it difficult for international and regional actors to develop conflict prevention and mitigation strategies when the group’s efforts are directed at supporting specific parties to conflict rather than towards more comprehensive peace processes. The reports of torture, sexual violence, and mass killings by Wagner run contrary to any efforts to promote dialogue, mediate disagreements, or foster comprehensive peace processes among parties to intra-state conflicts."

According to the Soufan report, "In Ukraine, the Wagner Group has also engaged in a broad range of criminal activity, such as murder, sabotage, rape, and pillaging. It has routinely used close-targeting improvised explosive devices (IEDs), been implicated in efforts to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and planted explosives around a nuclear facility."

Wagner is by no means an invincible military organization. During the Trump administration in 2018, U.S. forces killed between 200 and 300 Wagner mercenaries in Syria, who were in the employ of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The battle was widely viewed as one of the most lethal clashes between America’s military and Russian contract soldiers since the Cold War.

In this handout photo taken from video and released by Prigozhin Press Service Saturday, May 20, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group military company speaks holding a Russian national flag in front of his soldiers in Bakhmut, Ukraine. (Prigozhin Press Service via AP)

Soufan Center wrote that, "While Wagner has demonstrated certain operational capabilities in particular domains, its effectiveness should not be overstated. Its humiliating defeat by U.S. special forces in Syria, the countless lives it sacrificed as cannon fodder in Ukraine, and the group’s failure to curb an insurgency in Mozambique all attest to this."

WAGNER GROUP: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT RUSSIAN MERCENARY GROUP IN UKRAINE

A banner depicting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin and reading "Justice Prevails", is displayed along a highway in the Syrian capital Damascus, on March 8, 2022. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images)

The Soufan report's co-authors "In many ways, Wagner functions like a Swiss army knife," said Colin P. Clarke, a co-author of the Soufan report, adding "The group is versatile and adept."

According to a Naureen Chowdhury Fink, also a co-author of the report, "The group’s brutality against civilians and its support for predatory governments prolongs and even expands the instability and insecurity that led governments to seek their assistance in the first place." 

She said that "current events may leave Prigozhin’s fate uncertain but the impact of the group is undeniable and raises questions about who takes on the reins of their global business ventures and operations."

Members of Wagner group inspect a car in a street of Rostov-on-Don, on June 24, 2023. President Vladimir Putin on June 24, 2023 said an armed mutiny by Wagner mercenaries was a "stab in the back" and that the group's chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had betrayed Russia, as he vowed to punish the dissidents. Prigozhin said his fighters control key military sites in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don. (Photo by STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)

Former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officer Rebekah Koffler told Fox New Digital that the, "Wagner Group is not a traditional PMC [Private Military Company] but rather an extension of the Russian state. It was created with the specific goal of conducting ‘delicate affairs’ on behalf of the Kremlin when plausible deniability was required. The Russian state deployed Wagner to conduct covert influence and destabilization operations across the globe. They are not accountable to the Russian law, Wagner casualties are not counted as part of casualties of regular Russian military."

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Koffler, belies strongly that the recent rebellion might well have been pre-planned noting, "Wagner is Putin’s personal hit squad. Wagner/Prigozhin needs Putin and Putin needs Wagner," she stated.

Koffler also cautioned that "In the event that my analysis of the false flag is incorrect and Prigozhin indeed fell out of favor, he will die under mysterious circumstances in the next 2-3 months. Putin doesn’t tolerate traitors and hunts them down wherever they are in the world. Putin will turn Wagner into another mercenary squad masquerading as a Western style PMC and appoint someone to replace Prigozhin."