By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The United States on Tuesday slammed a sanctions against companies in Africa linked to illicit gold deals to help in funding the operations of mercenary fighters of Russia’s Wagner Group.
The companies include, Central African Republic-based Midas Ressources SARLU and Diamville SAU.
Washington also extended similar sanctions to two other firms in United Arab Emirates and Russia.
The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement that four companies linked to Wagner and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was last weekend removed were all sanctioned.
The companies are accused of being used as a conduit help to pay the paramilitary’s forces fighting in Ukraine and undertaking operations to support Russian interests in Africa.
“The Wagner Group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali. The United States will continue to target the Wagner Group’s revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine, and anywhere else,” Brian Nelson, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the statement.
The sanctions involves blocking any assets the companies hold in the U.S. and prohibit them from engaging in new deals in the U.S.
The State Department said the sanctions were not unconnected to Wagner’s short-lived mutiny last weekend against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s defence leadership for its handling of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Wagner has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, Mali and other countries, and has fought some of the bloodiest battles of the 16-month war in Ukraine, including at Bakhmut.
The group was founded in 2014 after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and started supporting pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
The sanction also hit the UAE-based Industrial Resources General Trading; and Russia-based DM, a limited liability company.
Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov, a Russian national, was also sanctioned.
The Treasury Department accused him of being an executive in the Wagner Group and said he worked closely with senior Malian officials on weapons deals, mining concerns and other Wagner activities in the country.
