Reuters
Wagner has been locked in a battle to take the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, where Western and Ukrainian officials have said it is using convicts as cannon fodder. The U.S. Treasury Department, as part of action targeting dozens of people and entities in an effort to degrade Russia's ability to wage the war, said it designated Wagner Group as a "significant transnational criminal organization" on Thursday. "Wagner personnel have engaged in an ongoing pattern of serious criminal activity, including mass executions, rape, child abductions, and physical abuse in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali," the Treasury said in a statement.