On March 9, 2023, Senior Research Fellow Jason Blazakis offered testimony at a hearing on ‘Countering Russia’s Terroristic Mercenaries’ hosted by the Commission on Security & Cooperation in Europe: U.S. Helsinki Commission. The hearing focused on the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary network, operating in Ukraine, with known past and current activities also in Mali, Sudan, and the Central African Republic. A focus of the hearing was in evaluating the most effective tools to counter the Wagner Group and its affiliates. In his testimony, Mr. Blazakis noted: “Wagner is a foreign-based organization engaged in terrorist activity that is a direct threat to U.S. national security interests. That’s the criteria for adding FTOs to the list.”
