Select committee: Foreign Affairs Committee
Recommendation 33
Seventh Report - Guns for gold: the Wagner Network exposed
Published 26 Jul 2023
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Foreign Affairs Committee The Wagner Group and beyond: proxy Private Military Companies All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government should take a more strategic and coherent approach to addressing the challenges of this network and other proxy ‘PMCs’ by: (Paragraph 84) (a) assigning clear responsibility for the Wagner Network and adjacent ‘PMCs’ to a senior official in the Russia Unit, whose primary job it is to ensure that all levers of government are working together to tackle the challenges of Russia-aligned PMCs; (b) establishing a cross-Government lead on Private Military Companies, operating from the Cabinet Office’s Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation, focused on analysing this trend, mapping activity globally, and bringing together different geographic desks and teams across the MoD, Treasury, intelligence community and FCDO as appropriate to assess threats to British interests, and to identify British responses as appropriate; (c) establishing a taskforce for addressing the challenges posed by the Wagner Network and other linked PMCs, to enable swift cross-government collaboration.
From: Foreign Affairs Committee, Seventh Report - Guns for gold: the Wagner Network exposed (HC 167), 26 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 30 October 2023 (deadline 26 September 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government responds to the Committee's recommendations by agreeing with some, partially agreeing with others and disagreeing with one, and says it has already proscribed Wagner Group as a terrorist organisation.
- On proscription, it "agrees" with the Committee's recommendation and says the order added Wagner Group to the list of proscribed organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000, in force from 15 September.
- It disagrees with a specific mechanism for coordinating Wagner sanctions with the US and EU, stating that existing mechanisms already enable close coordination, though it "will, however, keep the option of a specific mechanism for Wagner under review".
- On sanctions it partially agrees, saying its ability to sanction "depends on being able to build individual cases in line with the statutory requirements" and that it "will consider" the Committee's appendices in detail when considering further action.
- On aid, it partially agrees: it is committed to 0.7% of Gross National Income on ODA "once the fiscal situation allows", but says it currently has "no plans to reintroduce the FCAS spending commitment".