EXCLUSIVE-Biden to hammer Russia's Wagner group with tougher export curbs -sources

The Wagner group, which was added to a trade blacklist in 2017 after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region, will now face tough new curbs on access to technology made anywhere in the world with U.S. equipment, the sources said, declining to be named because the matter was not yet public. The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Biden administration on Wednesday plans to unveil new measures aimed at further choking off technology supplies to Russia's Wagner military group, two people familiar with the matter said. The Wagner group, which was added to a trade blacklist in 2017 after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region, will now face tough new curbs on access to technology made anywhere in the world with U.S. equipment, the sources said, declining to be named because the matter was not yet public.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Wagner group, a private military contractor with close ties to the Kremlin, was founded in 2014 after Russia seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and sparked a separatist insurgency in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Its forces are known to be fighting in parts of Ukraine, including during a brutal, long-running battle for the small city of Bakhmut.