Whereas Yevgeniy Prigozhin is a Russian national who has maintained close personal ties with President Vladimir Putin since the early 2000s; Whereas Yevgeniy Prigozhin is the patron and funder of the Wagner Group, also known as the Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner, a Russian mercenary organization staffed by current and former military and intelligence officers, and the Internet Research Agency (IRA), an organization engaged in online influence operations; Whereas the IRA has conducted online information operations against the United States in an attempt to sow division and discord among the American electorate, as well as the electorates of our European allies and partners; Whereas entities funded by Yevgeniy Prigozhin have been used by the Government of the Russian Federation to conduct military action, subversive operations, and disinformation campaigns on its behalf while giving it an appearance of plausible deniability; Whereas the Wagner Group was involved in the Russian Federation’s military invasion and illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in February and March 2014, and in the subsequent insurgencies in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk; Whereas the Wagner Group has been providing military support to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria since 2015, fighting alongside its forces and helping it recapture significant parts of the country; Whereas, on February 7, 2018, the Wagner Group led an armed assault on United States troops near the city of Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria, prompting a United States counterattack, in what has been described as the deadliest U.S.-Russia clash since the Cold War ; Whereas the Wagner Group has supported Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army by providing mercenaries, artillery, tanks, drones, and ammunition, with Yevgeniy Prigozhin personally attending a meeting between Haftar and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow on November 7, 2018