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18. The brutality of Wagner fighters when offering military services is notorious and well-documented, violating the norms of international law and taking the lives of civilians. Dr Sorcha MacLeod, Chair of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries, warned of the "trends of widespread violence and grave human rights violations" that surround them. Wagner fighters stand accused of atrocities in virtually all of the countries where they have operated militarily since 2014. Examples include:

In Ukraine, the German foreign intelligence service intercepted messages in April 2022 suggesting Wagner fighters played a leading role in the massacre in Bucha. Within the wider Russia-Ukraine war, Wagner fighters and regular members of the Russian Armed Forces are "given a free hand to conduct cruelty", according to Bellingcat's Christo Grozev. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General is processing more than 93,000 incidents of potential war crimes in Ukraine; he said on 3 July 2023 that Wagner forces had committed "among the most severe crimes" within this number.

UN experts have said Wagner fighters in the Central African Republic carried out grave human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture and gender-based violence. The Sentry, an investigative and policy NGO, accused Wagner fighters of creating "a climate of terror and fear". In October 2021, the CAR national authorities admitted Wagner fighters' role in atrocities.

A UN fact-finding mission verified the involvement of Wagner fighters in an 'anti-terrorist' operation in Mali from December 2021, which, in March 2022, led