Lithuanian Seimas recognizes Wagner PMC as a terrorist organization

The Lithuanian Seimas has passed a resolution recognizing the Russian private military company Wagner as a terrorist organization.

The resolution adopted today states that the Russian private military company Wagner is a terrorist organisation, and its members and mercenaries pose a threat to state and public security. At the same time, the Lithuanian parliament strongly condemned the use of any mercenary groups, such as Wagner, established with the support of the Russian authorities, to commit the crime of aggression in Ukraine.

The resolution was voted unanimously by 117 members of the Seimas.

“Since the beginning of the Russian Federation’s military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, servicemen of the Russian Federation and mercenaries of the private military company Wagner, which takes an active part in military actions on the side of the aggressor, have committed systematic grave crimes of aggression – killing and torturing civilians of Ukraine, bombing residential buildings and other civil facilities – which amounts to terrorism”

The Seimas resolution notes that the private military company Wagner, founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of the Russian president, is a shadow tool of the Russian authorities.

According to Laurins Kaščiūnas, one of the initiators of the resolution, such companies are increasingly being used by Russia in military conflicts. “The just presented public threat assessment of our Lithuanian intelligence services states that such private military and security companies may be able to conduct limited operations against Lithuania,” the politician said.

The resolution calls on other countries to recognize the Russian private military company Wagner as a terrorist organization. The Seimas also stresses the need for Lithuania to pass a terrorism prevention law with specific criteria, based on which the government or an institution authorized by it would approve a list of terrorist organizations, as well as sanctions as defined in existing laws.

Recall that the Italian government accused the Wagner group of increasing the number of ships with illegal migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, which is part of Moscow’s strategy to retaliate against countries that support Ukraine.