London:  A strong committee of UK lawmakers said Wednesday that Britain has "underplayed and underestimated" the threat posed by the Russian Wagner mercenary group and should declare it a terrorist organisation.

The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee criticised Britain's Wagner sanctions as being "underwhelming" and claimed that the UK government had not done much to monitor the private army's operations outside of Ukraine, where it had fought alongside Russia's occupying forces.

The committee, whose members come from both the ruling and opposition parties, stated that allowing the network to continue to thrive poses serious national security threats to the UK and its allies. It stated that the Wagner Network should be "urgently proscribed as a terrorist organisation," something the Conservative government has so far refused to do.

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The committee claimed in a 78-page report that Wagner, which is closely allied with the Russian government, acts like a "international criminal mafia, fueling corruption and plundering natural resources," particularly in Africa where it offers stability and defence to a number of authoritarian leaders.

"It is a significant failing to see the Wagner Network primarily through the prism of Europe, not least given its geographic spread, the impact of its activities on UK interests further abroad, and the fact that its wealth creation sits largely in Africa," the report stated. It was deemed to be "deeply regrettable" that the UK neglected Wagner prior to 2022 and "continues to give so little focus to countries beyond Ukraine."

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The committee declared that it had "high confidence" that Wagner had carried out military operations in at least seven nations since 2014: Mozambique, Mali, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Ukraine, Syria, and the Central African Republic.

The lawmakers claimed that in addition to having personal ties to those nations, Wagner also has commercial interests there, including lucrative gold mining ventures in the Sudan and the Central African Republic, where Wagner's gold-smuggling activities "enabled huge quantities of gold to bypass the state" and flow to Russia.

According to the committee, Wagner has also engaged in non-military activities such as election meddling in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and South Africa. There is also evidence of the group's involvement in other nations.

The lawmakers called British sanctions "underwhelming in the extreme" in comparison to those imposed by the United States and the European Union, and urged the government to act "faster and harder" to sanction people and organisations connected to Wagner.

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To prevent these nations from turning to Russia and Wagner for assistance, the lawmakers urged Britain to increase aid funding to fragile and conflict-ridden nations. They argued that the UK's decision to reduce its international aid spending from 0.7 percent to 0.5 percent of its gross domestic product should be overturned as soon as possible.

Following leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's armed uprising against Russia's top military officials last month, the report, which drew on research by journalists, government and non-government organisations, testimony from Russia experts, and testimony from a former Wagner fighter, claimed that Wagner's future was uncertain. When a deal was reached for Wagner troops to travel to Belarus, the uprising was put down in a matter of hours.