of the Treasury identifies the Wagner Group as a designated Russian Ministry of Defense proxy force and states that Wagner’s activities in other countries, including Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, and Libya, have generated insecurity and incited violence against innocent civilians . (10) It was reported in February 2022 that more than 400 Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group were dispatched to Kyiv with orders from the Kremlin to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and members of the Government of Ukraine. (11) On March 1, 2022, Jason Blazakis, the director of the Department of State’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office in the Bureau of Counterterrorism from 2008 to 2018, wrote in reference to white supremacist groups that Russia provides sanctuary to a U.S.-designated terrorist group, the Russian Imperial Movement, which operates with impunity in Russian territory. . (12) On March 17, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the world to acknowledge the Russian Federation as a terrorist state. (13) The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has appealed to Congress to encourage the Department of State to recognize the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism noting that the Russian Federation has for years supported and financed terrorist regimes and terrorist organizations, including being the main supplier of weapons to the Assad regime in Syria and supporting terrorists in the Middle East and Latin America, organizing acts of international terrorism, including the poisoning of the Skripal family in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the downing of a civilian Malaysian airliner and other acts of terrorism . (14) On November 23, 2022, the European Parliament recognized Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. (15) On November 23, 2022, the European Parliament recognized the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism. (16) On January 26, 2023, the Department of the Treasury designated the Wagner Group as a Transnational Criminal Organization, citing that Wagner