George W. Bush Says Pic of Prigozhin Serving Him Dinner Was ‘Shocking’

George W. Bush says he was not shocked by the recent death of Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash. “No, what’s shocking to me is I saw a picture the other day of a G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, where he was the guy serving me the food. He was Putin’s chef,” Bush said during the Yalta European Strategy conference over the weekend in Kyiv, where he appeared by video feed from Texas. In 2006, Bush and his wife, Laura, were at a dinner with Vladimir Putin. The photo of the occasion shows Prigozhin holding out a wine bottle to Bush. The former president didn’t remember the meeting until recently but quipped, “All I know is I survived.” Prigozhin was a restaurateur at the time, and Putin took a liking to his food. He soon became a close ally—and went on to become a mercenary power player and increasingly critical of Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine. In June, his Wagner troops invaded the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and marched toward Moscow. Two months later to the day, he was dead. At the conference, Bush also said the U.S. should not ask Ukraine to cede land to an “invader” to reach a peace agreement.