Russia’s Vladimir Putin has praised Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin as a “talented businessman” who always got him “results” when he was asked for a favor in his first public comments following the mercenary boss’ death. Acknowledging that he’d known Prigozhin since the 1990s, Putin seemed to hint at his former chef’s links to the criminal underworld, saying he’d had a “difficult fate” and made “serious mistakes in life.” But, Putin said, he always “got the necessary results, both for himself, and when I asked him to, for a common cause, like in these last months.” It was unclear if Prigozhin’s armed mutiny in June was among the mistakes Putin was referring to, but many of the Wagner boss’ supporters are already claiming “traitors” are behind his assassination, and some Western officials believe it was an act of vengeance by the Kremlin for his June uprising.
