ICC probes Wagner’s use of social media to showcase alleged war crimes in Mali

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is reviewing a confidential legal brief accusing the Russia-linked Wagner Group of committing war crimes in West Africa — not only through acts of extreme violence but by promoting them online.

The brief,submitted by legal experts from UC Berkeley,contends that Wagner’s dissemination of graphic content — showing beheadings,mutilation,and even cannibalism—via social media platforms like Telegram may itself constitute a war crime under the ICC-created Rome Statute. The statute defines the violation of personal dignity,mainly through humiliating and degrading treatment,as a war crime,a category that experts argue now extends to digital dissemination. “Since Wagner entered Mali,we’ve seen an escalation in war crimes and human rights violations,” said Lindsay Freeman of UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center.

These include ‘brutal beheadings,dismemberment,and things that we know about,” Freeman says,which is “because they are recording themselves doing it and self-publishing this to their social media accounts on Telegram.” Observers say Wagner’s digital campaign,often laced with racist messaging and targeting neo-Nazi audiences,has helped normalize brutality across the Sahel. Meanwhile,governments in Mali,Burkina Faso,and Niger have turned to Russia and its mercenaries amid Western withdrawal. The brief calls for the ICC to investigate not only Wagner operatives but also the governments of Mali and Russia for complicity in atrocities committed between December 2021 and July 2024.