The director of the Central Intelligence Agency is admitting the agency is doing everything it can to counter Russia's premier paramilitary organization, the Wagner Group.
The Kremlin-allied private military company is fighting to expand Russia's sphere of influence on multiple continents, from proxy wars in Africa to the savage fighting in Ukraine.
International experts have received numerous alarming reports of alleged war crimes committed by the network of mercenaries.
CIA Director Bill Burns acknowledged Washington's aggressive strategy Friday during public testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Vice News has more:
“Our assessment is that the Wagner Group is a vicious, aggressive organization which has posed a threat not just to the people of Ukraine,” said Burns in response to questions from various senators. He pointed out that the mercenary group, whose chief is Yevgeniy Prigozhin (who first came to prominence in Russia as a catering oligarch from St. Petersburg), is currently in charge of most of the fighting in the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. “But I've also seen it, in my own travels in West Africa and the Sahel, where I think the deeply destabilizing impact of Wagner can be seen in a lot of very fragile societies right now.”
As a means of exporting Russian influence abroad, President Vladimir Putin has dispatched the Wagner Group to West Africa and the Sahels as a sort of Kremlin shadow army fighting with national governments in a series of intractable conflicts. The mercenary group has also been involved in suspicious mining and natural resource extractions, with some of its fighters accused of rape and torture, while they appear openly at the side of national leaders and militia commanders alike.
…
But Burns was clear that the CIA is working hard to counter Wagner and its operations, with the help of the French government (a former colonial power in the region) and other allied nations.
“We work as an agency, along with our partners, to help many of those governments and many of our security service partners to resist that,” he said in the hearing, without providing specifics on what that support looked like. “We work with the French and with other countries, other allies in that effort as well. [emphasis added]
The Russian government denies any connection to Wagner. A spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry declined Vice's request for comment.
(H/T Vice News)
READ NEXT: Liberal Congresswoman's Bodyguard Offers Bizarre Excuse Amidst Claims Of Anti-Semitism
Is this who the Ukraines are fighting??
When our military is massed on the Mexican border, Amlo will agree to whatever we want him to do. What he can’t do is control his own country! It’s too late for that! Appalled as I am, Mexican politics is controlled by the drug Cartels, and the American money flowing into Mexico is very beneficial to their economy! It may be too late to avoid war now, because the cartels are also controlling the American Democratic Party officials in order to keep the border open. The Cartels, with their huge money supply and threat of violence have politicians who need vast sums of money, to continually to be re-elected over a barrel!