The one-time buddy of Vladimir Putin, mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has fully turned his back on his Kremlin boss, seizing control of Russia’s southern military HQ Rostov-on-Don with the threat of 25,000 fighters ready for insurrection.
His challenge was a bold one and the most significant threat to Putin’s power during his entire 23-year reign. In a shocking address to the nation, the president admitted the regime was up against an “armed mutiny” and “the toughest battle for its future.”
Prigozhin’s troops were marching toward Moscow when he suddenly changed course and ordered them to turn around on Saturday after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko struck a deal with him to “de-escalate tensions,” according to a statement from Belarus’ government.
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It is not immediately clear if Prigozhin will keep Wagner’s presence in Rostov-on-Don, or what Putin possibly conceded in the deal to get Prigozhin to complete a 180 degree turn.
But who is Prigozhin?
Most known now as the chief of the Wagner Group, a brutal Russian paramilitary organization at the front of the invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin is a vulgarity-slinging businessman dubbed “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin.
Despite his former loyalty to Putin, Prigozhin has been feuding with the Russian Defense Ministry, who he first accused of lying about Moscow’s motivations for the war against Ukraine and now claims retaliated with a missile strike that allegedly killed a “huge number” of his mercenaries.
But before all that, the Wagner boss was a convicted youngster and a hot-dog-seller-turned-entrepreneur who was later indicted in the U.S. for meddling in the 2016 election.
He was born in 1961 in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg, named Leningrad under the Soviet Union. As a teenager and young adult, Prigozhin was caught in a string of robberies, fraud, and other crimes, serving a nine-year prison sentence, according to The New York Times.
Prigozhin then opened a hot dog stand, a comparatively tiny stepping stone toward a much larger career in the hospitality industry starting up restaurants and businesses—all before catching Putin’s eye and reaching his highest ranks. Now, the oligarch reportedly has a net worth of roughly $1 billion.
His name was launched into the U.S. sphere when he formed part of an indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three companies accused of interfering in the 2016 election and communicating with Donald Trump’s campaign. Prigozhin founded and financed the so-called “Troll Factory,” which was central to waging “information warfare” in the U.S. with heaps of propaganda and bogus “news.” Two of his other companies—Concord Management as well as Consulting and Concord Catering—also appeared in the indictment.
In December 2016, the Treasury Department blacklisted Prigozhin, only one of his numerous, subsequent sanctions in the U.S. He is also on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, with a reward of up to $250,000 for information leading to his arrest.
What is the Wagner Group?
Prigozhin’s private army of mercenaries was first identified in 2014, BBC reported, when Russian forces invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Wagner started as a small and secretive operation, with only about 5,000 fighters taking root in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
The group’s name reportedly comes from the nom de guerre of its first leader, Dmitry Utkin, a Ukrainian-born retired Russian army officer and Nazi fanatic. It is believed Utkin’s call sign meant to tribute the composer of the same name, who was one of Adolf Hitler’s favorites.
Wagner has since seen stunning growth, currently commanding tens of thousands of troops—a majority of which drawn from Russian prisoners—to bolster Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. Prigozhin has been front and center to Kremlin attempts to capture the city of Bakhmut, which he claimed to seize control of in May—although Volodymyr Zelensky denied the occupation.
Zelensky did, however, concede at the time that Bakhmut was “only in our hearts,” referring to the mass destruction of the city by Russian forces. The city is a key battleground as Ukraine revs up its counteroffensive and attempts to “inflict maximum damage on the enemy” in the face of Russia’s Bakhmut “victory.”
