Ukraine demands damages from Wagner group in court
2022.12.07 12:40
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Ukraine demands damages from Wagner group in court
Budrigannews.com – A lawyer whose firm filed the lawsuit against Russian private military contractor Wagner said on Wednesday that it could help Ukrainians seek compensation for alleged crimes committed during Russia’s invasion.
According to Jason McCue of McCue Jury and Partners, the lawsuit that was filed last month on behalf of the alleged victims of Wagner would target what Kyiv claims to be the group’s global assets and aim to bind Moscow in court, McCue said.
“Together we can shake and strip this Russian doll until its secret layers uncover that its fortune is for us to guarantee and to provide for Ukrainians for equity,” he told correspondents in Kyiv.
He stated that additional suits would be filed with the intention of harming Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war machine.”
For comment, Wagner representatives could not be reached.
The group has fought in Mali, Libya, Syria, and the Central African Republic, among other places. Its founding members were former Russian military personnel.
After Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and sparked a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, it was established in 2014.
Private military contractors have the right to work anywhere as long as they do not violate Russian law, according to Putin, who has stated that the group does not represent the Russian state.
Halyna Yanchenko, a senior legislator in Ukraine, stated that Kyiv was providing information regarding alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine in order to cooperate with the lawsuit.
In a “special military operation” that it launched in February in Ukraine, Russia has refuted claims that its troops committed war crimes.
However, Yanchenko argued that Wagner should be classified as a terrorist organization and that Kyiv’s efforts to persuade partners, including Washington, that Russia should be declared a state sponsor of terrorism would benefit from a legal victory in London.
During the briefing, Yanchenko stated, “I think that if certain Western institutions or politicians are afraid to recognize Russia as a sponsor of terrorism, then recognising Wagner as a terrorist organization, if a concrete argument is there, shouldn’t be difficult for them.”
