US targets Chinese firm for helping Russian group in Ukraine

WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Chinese company for allegedly providing satellite imagery in Ukraine to help Russia's Wagner mercenary group, which has come under growing US pressure.

The Treasury Department and State Department announced a slew of actions as they formally designated the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization, a move previewed last week by the White House.

The new sanctions "will further impede the Kremlin's ability to arm its war-machine that is engaged in a war of aggression against Ukraine, and which has caused unconscionable death and destruction," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Among the firms targeted was Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute Co., a Chinese firm which the Treasury Department said has provided satellite imagery over Ukraine to the Wagner Group.

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"These images were gathered in order to enable Wagner combat operations in Ukraine," said a statement by the Treasury Department, which also announced sanctions on a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of the Chinese company.

China is officially an ally of Russia but the United States has trumpeted what it sees as Beijing's tepid support for the war in Ukraine including a refusal to supply Moscow with weapons.

But US officials have been concerned about activities by private Chinese companies, which Washington believes are unlikely to be working at the behest of the Chinese government but could be stopped by Beijing.

The Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on an aviation firm based in the United Arab Emirates, Kratol, which it said had provided aircraft for the Wagner Group to move personnel and equipment between the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali.

The Wagner Group, headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been especially active in the Central African Republic, where the Treasury Department blacklisted firms seen as part of the Russian unit.

The Wagner Group has taken an increasingly prominent role in Ukraine as it sends to the battlefield Russian inmates who are promised clemency.

The White House on Friday said that Wagner has about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, 80 percent of them drawn from prisons.