US Sanctions CCP State-owned Firm Helping Russia’s Wagner Group

U.S. claims on Thursday that it has imposed sanctions on a Communist China state-owned firm Changsha(长沙) Tianyi (天仪)Space Science and Technology Research Institute, also known as Spacety, for supplying Russia’s Wagner Group with radar satellite imagery of Ukraine to support its combat operations. Spacety manufactures small satellites and is based in Changsha, Hunan province, with offices in Beijing and Luxembourg. It is known that the firm as a pioneer and leader in commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) remote sensing and research satellites in Communist China. The Treasury Department announced sanctions targeting Wagner Group on Jan. 26, designating it as a transnational criminal organization. PMC Wagner (Wagner Group) is a Russian private military company led by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Putin crony and the target of multiple U.S. sanctions. Wagner Group has been involved in Kremlin-backed combat operations around the world in support of Putin’s war on Ukraine. Wager has sent Russian prisoners to war in exchange for an amnesty. The White House said Jan. 20 that 80 percent of the 50,000 Wagner Group mercenaries in Ukraine are from Russian prisons. The U.S. Department of the Treasury also announced sanctions against “Spacety Luxembourg” (Spacety Luxembourg S.A.) as reported on Jan.26th. In addition, Secretary of State John Blinken said in a statement that “this action supports our goal to degrade Moscow’s capacity to wage war against Ukraine, to promote accountability for those responsible for Russia’s war of aggression and associated abuses, and to place further pressure on Russia’s defense sector.”