US to designate Russia’s Wagner mercenary neighborhood as a criminal organization

The US Treasury Department is expected to designate the Russian mercenary organization, the Bognor Group, as a transnational criminal organization with links to North Korea Russian President.

Vladimir Putin has increasingly relied on Wagner to carry out operations in Ukraine As we have said publicly. North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles into Russia for use by Wagner toward the end of last year. Bodner is a criminal organization.

That is continuing wide sorry, committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses. CNN's Oren Liebermann joins us from the Pentagon now or and what does this new designation mean? First, it means that Wagner and those entities associated with it,.

Perhaps not only in Ukraine, but other places Wagner operates, such as Africa. Syria will face more sanctions from the US government. It's also a strong statement about how the US views Wagner, a mercenary group used by Russia, as an additional force.

The US recently declassified photos, it says, are of a Russian train crossing into North Korea. About five cars on that Russian train picking up ammo. You can see the images there taking that ammo from North Korea and bringing it back to the fight in Ukraine.

That's the part of this that makes for ordinary transnational criminal organization The U.S. had talked about this just a couple of weeks ago, but late last year. And here, they say, is the evidence, the photographs.

That back that up. Interestingly, it was Wagner that was using the artillery and the ammo provided here, not the Russian Ministry of Defense. And that gets out of how Wagner is operating, essentially a mercenary organization.

That is competing with at times and operating independently of the Russian military, primarily in Bermuda, a town in eastern Ukraine. That's where we've seen Wagner operating. According to the US, with a very high percentage of convicts,.

Also filling in the shortages of, frankly, bodies in the Russian military that Russia is looking for and suffering heavy casualties as well. This is another step against Wagner coming from the U.S.. Nic Robertson is CNN's international diplomatic editor. Jill Dougherty is a CNN contributor.

And former CNN Moscow bureau chief. Nic, what's the significance? What will change now that Bognor is designated as a criminal organization? It's going to make it harder for them to do business around the world. They've become an effective extension of the Russian state.

In some ways, extending their influence and moneymaking abilities from from Africa to the Middle East in Syria. And they've become a very effective fighting force in Ukraine. So blunting them is to blunting their abilities and trying to cut off money to them.

Is to blunt their effectiveness and they're effective for Putin. Jill, we heard from John Kirby today that there is some concern within the Russian government about the recruiting practices of the Wagner group. 80% of their mercenaries.

Or fighters are convicts. There's also some disagreement over taking credit for the fight in Salvador. How fraught is the relationship between the Wagner group and promotion and the Russian government, military and Putin? You know, there's definitely tension.

Between them because as you the Wagner group, used to be kind of in the shadows before all of this came out. And so now they're very much public and they have been claiming that they were the people who went into Solider and defeated the Ukrainians, etc., and criticizing.

The regular Russian military for not being able to do that, for essentially screwing up the war. So this is really, I think, a significant back and forth between those two groups. It looks as if now you've got the government, Putin's government coming out.

War on the side of the regular military. But Wagner is really important. It is estimated that they have 50,000 fighters in Ukraine right now. 10,000 are contractors and the other 40 are prisoners who are let out in order to fight. And they have money.

They're backed by oligarchs there. They're an important part of what Russia is trying to do in Ukraine, unfortunately. Hmm. Nick, we've learned that CIA chief U.S. intel officials are briefing or have briefed President Zelensky.

About this coming Russian offensive. What do we know about what that would look like? The potential is for Russia to have reequiped and retrained a large number of troops. We know that they said that they recruited about 300,000 forces.

Towards the end of last year. It's believed they committed about 100,000 of those to the fight in Ukraine already. There's potential only an estimated a hundred to 150,000 of them left who could.

Well have been given the training, the all those others that have been used as cannon fodder on the front lines haven't been given. Just this week, President Putin visited an armaments factory. He commended them for that. Their work told them how important it was.

Mentioned that they were working 20 473 shifts a day to keep production of armaments high because that's what's required. So, you know, it seems at the moment that Russia is getting itself ready to launch another offensive. And the clock is ticking on that. And that's made the conversations.

In Germany about the possibility of sending tanks to Ukraine. All the more pressing Ukraine is listening to that sort of intelligence. And unlike the time before the war, a year ago, when they said.

They didn't believe an offensive was coming, this is much more critical. Russia if it comes back with a big push, with better trained, better equipped forces, better organized than previously. This is this is a potential worrying and and dangerous threat for Ukraine.

Right now on the front lines in the east. Jill, is it likely. Are there signs that that Russia will be able to come with that better trained, better equipped, better strategized, better led fighting force in the spring?.

They may have learned something, you know, from bringing in during the last mobilization that started in September when you had a lot of regular guys from big cities being pulled into the military. They were.

There were multiple reports and we've talked about this where they went into the field with very limited kit, you know, not enough weapons, not enough supplies. Their families were providing some of what they needed. But so far,.

It appears that the Kremlin has improved on that. But it's still there the way they command their troops. And the preparation is not at all on the level of what Neato does. So it's it's a matter of personnel and weapons and strategy.

And that's where the Russians often fail.

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