US claims Chinese firm helped Russia's Wagner group in Ukraine, places sanctions

The United States on Thursday imposed a slew of sanctions on a Chinese company for allegedly providing satellite imagery of war-hit Ukraine to Russia's Wagner group. The members of US Senate, however, pushed the Biden administration for stronger action against Beijing. Both the treasury and state departments formally designated the Wagner group as a 'transnational criminal organisation'. The White House had approved the move last week.

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Among the firms targeted with a slew of sanctionswasChangsha, Hunan province-based Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute, a Chinese firm which the US claimed has provided satellite imagery over Ukraine to the Wagner Group.

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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 an official statement.

"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.

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China is officially an ally of Russia. The United States sees it as Beijing's overt support for the war in Ukraine. China in the past has refused to supply Moscow with weapons.

"We will bring to their attention when we see violations of sanctions by their companies," Victoria Nuland, the State Department's number three official, told a Senate hearing on Thursday, AFP reported.

She was responding to senators who called for sanctions against China unless it limits the exports of technology necessary for missiles and related military applications by Russia.

"I understand that there has been evidence that Chinese companies working through Hong Kong have been exporting dual-use technologies including semiconductor chips," said Bob Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"It seems to me that we should not forsake the potential of sanctions against China if it is providing critical assistance and it shouldn't be able to hide behind some companies," he said.

"We need to cut the head of the snake off in every way we can."

The Wagner Group — headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin — has been especially active in the Central African Republic.

The Wagner Group has taken a prominent role in Ukraine as it sends to the battlefield Russian inmates who are promised clemency. The United States claimed last Friday that Wagner has about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, 80 percent of them drawn from prisons.

(With inputs from agencies)

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