Yevgeny Prigozhin: The former sizzling canine vendor and thug who turned Wagner boss at centre of mutiny

From flea market sizzling canine vendor to the pinnacle of a mercenary group behind a mutiny towards the Russian army, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rise has been removed from abnormal.

A former convict who spent a lot of his younger life behind bars, he rose as much as turn into near Vladimir Putin.

He even earned himself the nickname “Putin’s chef” on account of his Kremlin-linked catering enterprise.

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But the 62-year-old boss of the mercenary Wagner Group now stands accused of open rebel towards Russia by his shut buddy.

It is a state of affairs some specialists say has been a very long time coming, notably in mild of Prigozhin’s incendiary remarks about Russia’s army management and his earlier warning of a 1917-style rebel.

But who’s Prigozhin and the way did we get so far?

Crime and sizzling canine

Born in 1961 within the metropolis of Leningrad – now Saint Petersburg, Prigozhin had a tough begin in life, dropping his father at a younger age.

He turned to crime in his teenage years, initially theft, however shortly escalating into extra severe crimes. He was jailed for 12 years, aged 20, in 1981 after being convicted of theft and fraud.

“Prigozhin is a former conman – he was a thug,” in line with Samantha de Bendern from the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

“He was put in prison in the 1980s for basically assaulting a woman in the street. He spent quite a number of years in the Soviet Union’s penitentiary system,” she instructed Sky News.

Prigozhin was pardoned in 1988 and launched in 1990, when he started promoting sizzling canine at a flea market in Leningrad along with his mom and stepfather.

He left jail throughout perestroika and glasnost – the interval within the Nineteen Nineties when Russia was opening as much as the world after years of isolation underneath communism.

‘Putin’s butcher’ and becoming a member of the elite

Prigozhin later based, or turn into concerned in, many new companies and within the 2000s, he grew nearer to Putin.

“He very quickly got onto the private property/private enterprise bandwagon and ended up being a hot dog seller,” Ms de Bendern instructed Sky News.

“And this is where things become very mysterious because he transformed himself from hot dog seller to restaurateur to the grand and great of the new post-Soviet Russian elite.”

According to a New York Times article in 2018, Prigozhin stated the “rubles were piling up faster than his mother could count them”.

His firms gained profitable authorities contracts, together with offering college lunches, and in Moscow alone his firm Concord gained tens of millions of {dollars} in offers.

Prigozhin ultimately turned the caterer to a variety of Russian state considerations, together with the military – a deal which jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny claimed broke competitors bidding guidelines.

He was additionally catered for lots of state visits and met presidents and heads of state – together with then-French president Jacques Chirac, who dined with Putin at one among his eating places.

His catering background and his work for the Kremlin earned Prigozhin the nickname “Putin’s chef” – or typically “Putin’s butcher”.

Prigozhin addressed the nickname earlier this yr and denied he was ever a chef, saying “butcher” was extra correct.

“They could have just given me a nickname right away – Putin’s butcher, and everything would have been fine,” he stated.

Coming out as Wagner chief

A as soon as shadowy personal army contractor (PMC), little was recognized concerning the Wagner Group’s formation and Prigozhin’s function was stored a intently guarded secret.

Experts imagine it was possible set as much as permit believable deniability about Russia’s army involvement in Ukraine and Syria.

It is privately owned however its administration and operations are “deeply intertwined” with the Russian army and intelligence neighborhood, in line with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an American suppose tank.

The Russian authorities has beforehand denied involvement with the group and has insisted personal army contractors usually are not authorized in Russia.

However, Putin not too long ago praised Wagner’s seize of Bakhmut in what’s believed to be his first acknowledgment of the group.

The group got here to the world’s consideration in 2014 in the course of the Donbas battle, the place it supported pro-Russian separatists in a coup, and for sneak assaults, reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering in the course of the annexation of Crimea.

Read extra:
Prigozhin a disaster waiting to happen – analysis
Putin accuses mercenary boss of treason

Wagner can also be believed to have operated in international locations in Africa – together with Mali, Mozambique and Sudan – the place it has been accused of human rights abuses by the EU.

Prigozhin beforehand denied any hyperlinks to Wagner and even launched authorized motion towards Western journalists who tried to attract such a connection.

However, after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin went public and claimed he had based the mercenary drive in 2014.

Recruiting hundreds of prisoners

Prigozhin’s affect has grown for the reason that invasion and his forces have stepped out of the shadows for use brazenly in fight.

In late March 2022, UK defence intelligence and US officers stated Wagner Group had about 1,000 personnel in Donbas and jap Ukraine.

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Then, in August, posters calling for recruits to affix Wagner started to appear in Russian cities; whereas a month later, a video appeared which confirmed Prigozhin making an attempt to recruit prisoners.

By December, Wagner forces had swelled to 50,000, in line with John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications on the White House’s National Security Council.

Around 40,000 had been believed to be convicts and the remaining contractors, he added.

“Wagner almost certainly now commands 50,000 fighters in Ukraine,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence stated in January this yr.

Despite enormous casualty charges, it has proved efficient at delivering battlefield success – one thing the Russian military has struggled with.

Prigozhin’s forces had been closely concerned within the seize of Bakhmut, one of many conflict’s bloodiest battles.

According to US figures, round 20,000 Russian troops had been killed within the preventing, with round half considered from the Wagner Group.

While Prigozin has appeared to point out compassion for the lifetime of his mercenaries at instances, he infamously appeared to revel within the brutal execution of a Wagner deserter with a sledgehammer.

“A dog receives a dog’s death,” stated Prigozhin in response to the video, revealed in November final yr.

‘Eat their guts in hell’ – Clashes with the Kremlin

While Wagner forces have made advances, the conflict has additionally given Prigozhin an opportunity to additional his personal political ambitions.

He has, on a number of events, made public his displeasure with the Russian army management, usually in strongly-worded movies on social media.

Earlier this yr, he accused the defence ministry of failing to offer sufficient ammunition to Wagner forces in Bakhmut and never offering cowl for his or her flanks.

He even threatened to tug troops out in the event that they weren’t resupplied.

“These are someone’s fathers and someone’s sons,” Prigozhin stated on the time, as he shared a video of himself standing by the our bodies of lifeless troops.

“The scum that doesn’t give us ammunition will eat their guts in hell.”

Earlier this month, Prigozhin arrived in Moscow with a contract which, in impact, tried to formalise Wagner as an equal however separate army drive to the Russian military.

Hours earlier than his rebel, he took purpose at defence minister Shoigu – usually the primary goal of his vitriol – in addition to chief of the overall employees Valery Gerasimov.

He additionally claimed Kremlin officers and oligarchs needed the invasion of Ukraine to make cash and advance their very own careers.

Prigozhin has usually taken swipes on the Russian “elite”, who he claims have prevented the affect of the conflict whereas reaping the advantages.

In May, he warned the nation would face turmoil if abnormal Russians continued getting their kids again in coffins whereas these of the elite “shook their a***s” within the solar.

He additionally launched a video by which he paid respect to international fighters who had fallen whereas preventing for Ukraine in Bakhmut by draping their coffins with their nation’s flag – which some specialists stated was a ploy to spice up his place amongst world leaders.

However, whereas important of Kremlin officers, one factor Prigozhin has been cautious to keep away from is criticism of Putin himself.

“He is a product of the Kremlin,” stated Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre.

“He can be against part of the elite but at the same time, if he were against Putin, he would disappear overnight.”

Mark Galeotti of University College London, who specialises in Russian safety affairs, stated throughout his podcast In Moscow’s Shadows: “[Prigozhin] is not one of Putin’s close figures or a confidant.

“Prigozhin does what the Kremlin desires, and does very properly for himself within the course of. But that is the factor – he’s a part of the employees, quite than a part of the household.”