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

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.

The Biden administration plans on Wednesday to unveil new curbs on technology exports to Russia's Wagner military group, two people familiar with the matter said, in a bid to further choke off supplies to the contractor over its role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 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, which plans to label the company as a "military end user," the sources said, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The announcement will be a show of support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who visited the White House on Wednesday, receiving renewed assurances of U.S. support amid Russia's continued onslaught on Ukraine.

The United States has backed Kyiv with billions of dollars worth of weapons shipments and tough sanctions on Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February in what it describes as a special operation. 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.