The European Union on Thursday added the Russian paramilitary organization “Wagner” to the list of individuals and legal entities that have been sanctioned for “active participation in Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine,” reports AFP.

The group of mercenaries, which is fighting in the east of Ukraine, trying to capture the cities of Bakhmut and Soledar, in February was already included in another list of EU sanctions for violating human rights and “destabilizing” African countries.

The European Council, which represents 27 EU countries, explained that the new list of sanctions “supplements” the previous one.

“Wagner” PMC, it is further noted, is included in the list for “actions that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”

The fact that this paramilitary organization is subject to dual sanctions in this way “underlines the international dimension and seriousness” of its activities, as well as “its destabilizing effect on the countries in which it operates,” the Council said in a statement.

The Council also added to the list of individuals and legal entities subject to sanctions, the Russian mass media RIA FAN, which is part of the Patriot media group, whose board of directors is headed by Wagner’s patron Yevgeny Prigozhin.

A Russian NGO and a defector from Wagner said the group’s mercenaries were responsible for the beheading of a man who appeared to be a Ukrainian prisoner of war.

Prigozhin rejected the accusations, and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, condemned the new act of the Russian “monsters”.

The one-minute-and-forty-second viral video, which has been circulating since Tuesday, shows a man in camouflage clothing with a masked face slashing the throat of another man in uniform, who is writhing on the ground and yelling, “It hurts.”

The Russian prosecutor’s office announced on Thursday that it had begun a staff check.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on individuals and companies, freezing their assets in its member states and banning them from traveling to those countries. In addition, no one in the EU is allowed to provide them with funds.

Over the past year, the EU has imposed ten consecutive rounds of sanctions against Russia following its military offensive in Ukraine.

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