The Biden administration plans to impose new restrictions on technology exports to Russia’s Wagner military group on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in an effort to further block supplies to a contractor that played a role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Graffiti with the Wagner group on a block in BelgradePhoto: Oliver Bunic / AFP / Profimedia Images

Wagner Group, which was added to a trade blacklist in 2017 after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region, will now face tough new restrictions on access to technology made anywhere in the world with American equipment, the sources said, declining to stay, as the case was not yet public.

The Commerce Department, which plans to call the company a “military end user,” did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the sources said.

The announcement will be a show of support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, who visited the White House on Wednesday to receive fresh assurances of US support amid Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine.

The United States has supported Kyiv with billions of dollars in arms and tough sanctions against Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February in what it describes as a special operation.

The Wagner Group, a private military contractor with close ties to the Kremlin, was founded in 2014 after Russia seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and fueled a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Its forces are known to be fighting in some parts of Ukraine, including during the brutal and protracted battle for the small town of Bakhmut, Reuters reports.