Wagner Group founder’s mother wins challenge to EU sanctions
Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mother has won a European Union court appeal against her inclusion on the bloc’s sanctions list following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Violetta Prigozhina was targeted in February last year through her association with her son, whose mercenary group has played a key role in Vladimir Putin’s increasingly all-encompassing war effort. The EU General Court, the bloc’s second-highest tribunal, on Wednesday annulled her inclusion on the list.
Even if Prigozhin “is responsible for actions undermining the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” the link between mother and son “is based solely on their family relationship and is therefore not sufficient to justify her inclusion on the contested lists.”
Russian billionaires and family members hit by EU sanctions over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine have been flocking to the bloc’s courts in Luxembourg in an attempt to extricate themselves from the list and have their funds unfrozen again.
Known as “Putin’s chef” for his background in the restaurant business in the president’s hometown of St. Petersburg and Kremlin catering contracts, Prigozhin has emerged as one of the leading players as the war enters its second year.
The EU said it added his mother to its sanctions list for having “supported actions and policies which undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine” through her association with her son and companies linked to him, such as Concord Management and Consulting LLC.
She attacked the claims as lacking “specific reason” and has disputed “being currently linked” to Concord Management, arguing that “it cannot legitimately be inferred from the links to her son that she may have contributed to compromising the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
The Financial Times reported last month that Prigozhin was able to pass UK anti-money laundering checks by submitting a utility bill in the name of his mother, who lives in St Petersburg.
Wagner’s tactics have represented a departure from conventional Russian methods, as Prigozhin added thousands of inexperienced prison convicts to his forces, offering them exoneration once their service was complete.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has designated the Wagner Group a transnational criminal organisation in an effort to blunt its powerful role on the battlefield in Ukraine and around the world.
Prigozhin over the weekend blamed “ordinary bureaucracy or betrayal” for the ammunition shortage among his forces fighting in Bakhmut. He wrote a letter to the military campaign’s top commander urgently requesting more supplies.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Browning, Yuliya Fedorinova and Gregory L. White)
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
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