U.S. Says Any Attacks By Wagner Group 'Will Be Seen As Attack By Russian Government'

Washington D.C./01.08.23/Turan:    The U.S. envoy to the UN said on Monday that any attacks by the Wagner Group against a NATO territory will be seen as an attack by the Russian Government, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"We have raised our concerns about the Wagner Group long before they got in the press for actually attacking their own government. We have seen their malign efforts on the continent of Africa. So we certainly worry that this group, at the behest of the Russian Government – because they do not work independently of the Russian Government – is a threat to all of us," Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters during a press call organized by the State Department's New York Foreign Press Center.

Russia, she added, has said itself directly that they may attack civilian ships using the Black Sea. "This is not the actions that we would expect again of a permanent member of the Security Council. They’re going against all norms, all the values of the UN Charter, and those actions should be roundly condemned by everyone," Thomas-Greenfield added.

Asked by TURAN whether Russia's destroying 180,000 tons of Ukrainian grain during the past 9 days constituted a war crime, the Ambassador said "we saw from the UN that that grain could have fed, in a year, tens of thousands of people around the world. So this is a concern for us. We have raised it in the Security Council and will continue to raise our concerns about that, including in our meeting on Thursday."

Secretary Antony Blinken will chair a high-level UN Security Council open debate on famine and conflict-induced global food insecurity this Thursday.

Alex Raufoglu