A Watford man has denied being a member of a Russian paramilitary group, after being charged in reference to the 2000 Terrorism Act.
The BBC has reported that Piotr Kucharski, 49, of The Glebe, Watford, has been charged with professing to be a member of the Wagner Group contrary to the Terrorism Act.
These charges followed an investigation by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) and concern a period between September 15 and October 28, 2023.
The Wagner Group emerged during the Donbas War and played a significant role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine from 2014 to 2015. The group recruited Russian prison inmates for frontline combat and by 2022, had grown from 1,000 to 50,000 individuals.
There are also reports that the group supported regimes friendly with Putin’s Russia, including in the civil wars in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali.
In August 2023, Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a plane crash following a failed mutiny against Russia’s military leaders.
Kucharski entered a not-guilty plea last month at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and will appear at the Old Bailey on Friday, August 16.
Photo Credit: Dmitriy Kandinskiy, Shutterstock.com
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