On June 26^th, Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin spoke out in defense of his march on Moscow, saying that it was not meant to be a coup attempt, but was instead protesting the military leadership of Russia. According to Prigozhin, the move was in response to an attack from the Russian government, which, he claims, killed 30 of his fighters. Although the 11-minute audio message explained the march, Prigozhin gave no information as to his whereabouts or future plans. The tanks stopped 125 miles short of the capital, but Prigozhin said that his convoy “blocked all military infrastructure” in its path.

The growing threat presented by the Wagner Group has led some to question the effects the West is incurring by sanctioning Putin’s government. Victor Olevich, a political analyst with the Center for Actual Politics, raised the question to Al Jazeera, asking, “Is pushing Russia too far, is isolating Russia too much, is sanctioning Russia too heavily – can those measures bring Russia to such an unstable situation that the West will face a threat of an entirely different magnitude?”

Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden has explicitly stated that Prigozhin’s march should not implicate the U.S. “We made clear we were not involved,” Biden said. “We had nothing to do with this.”

In a time when sub-state actors are becoming increasingly powerful and hostile, it is important to recognize groups like Wagner as a legitimate threat to world peace and stability. Sanctions should be placed on Belarus for accepting Prigozhin and granting him a safe haven, thereby enabling the Wagner Group to continue to exacerbate the conflict in Ukraine. Although Putin is by no means a peaceful or democratic leader, destabilizing the Russian government by empowering actors like the Wagner Group would lead to more violence in the long run.

Since war broke out between Ukraine and Russia in 2022, tensions have been rising between the Wagner Group and the Russian government over disputes about supplies, chain of command, and other issues. The group, which Prigozhin claims to have founded in 2014, helped Russia annex Crimea and has been active in supporting pro-Russia forces in Ukraine. Although the Wagner Group technically illegal, the mercenary organization is a registered private company in Russia. In January, the U.S. said it would consider the group criminal. Now, Prigozhin is believed to be exiled in Belarus, and N.A.T.O. has promised to defend its allies from Wagner Group attacks, as well as attacks directly from Moscow.

Recognizing the Wagner Group as the legitimate threat to a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war that it is will make it possible to mitigate the effects of its actions. Wagner’s status as a private, rather than state, entity does not mean that it lacks the ability to prolong the conflict, or to plunge Russia into a destructive civil war between two violent and repressive alternatives. This body must be taken seriously as a threat to peace in Russia and Eastern Europe.