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| 'Putin's chefs' who lead a military of 'mercenaries' |
He is no stranger to Russian prisons as he has recruited thousands of convicted criminals for his private military company, the Wagner Group. If these prisoners are ready to fight in Ukraine, it doesn't matter how serious their crimes are.
Before Russia launched Europe's worst armed conflict since World War II, Prigozhin was accused of meddling in US elections and expanding Russian influence in Africa.
After all, how did a person who started like this gain so much influence?
The beginning of Yevgeny Prigozhin's journey
Yevgeny Prigozhin hails from Vladimir Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg. In 1979, he was convicted of a crime for the first time. He was only 18 years old at the time and was sentenced to two and a half years for theft.
Two years later, he was sentenced to thirteen years in prison for robbery and theft, nine of which Yevgeny Prigozhin spent behind bars.
After his release from prison, Prigozhin started a business selling hot dog stalls in St. Petersburg. Business went well and within a few years in the 1990s, Pregozin was able to open expensive restaurants in the city.
From here he began to interact with the high and powerful personalities of St. Petersburg and then Russia. One of Prigozhin's restaurants called the New Island, was a boat that ran from one bank to the other in the Neva River.
Vladimir Putin liked the restaurant so much that he began taking his foreign guests thereafter becoming president, and this is probably where the two met for the first time.
Prigozhin said in an interview that "Vladimir Putin saw that I had no problem serving plates to dignitaries myself. We met when he came with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori."
Yoshiro Mori visited St. Petersburg at the very beginning of Vladimir Putin's reign in April 2000. Putin had come to trust Prigozhin so much that he celebrated his birthday on New Island in 2003.
Several years later, Prigozhin's catering company 'Concord' was awarded a contract to supply food to the Kremlin, earning him the title 'Putin's Chef'. Prigozhin-affiliated firms also secured lucrative catering contracts from the military and government schools.
Wagner Group
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it came to light that Prigozhin was not an ordinary businessman, but was linked to a private military company. This private army was first reported to be fighting Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region.
It is commonly known as 'Wagner'. In addition to Ukraine, Wagner was active throughout Africa and elsewhere. The group was always doing things that could further the Kremlin's agenda.
Over time, this group of mercenaries gained a terrible reputation for brutality. Members of Wagner are accused of torturing a Syrian prisoner with a hammer in 2017, beheading him, and then setting his body on fire.
The following year, three Russian journalists were killed while investigating Wagner's presence in the Central African Republic.
In 2022, Wagner was again accused of murdering a man with a hammer on suspicion that he had 'betrayed' the group in Ukraine.
After members of the European Parliament called for Wagner to be designated as a terrorist group, Prigozhin claimed he had sent politicians a bloody hammer.
For years Prigozin denied having any links to Wagner and even sued those who suggested he did, but then in September 2022 Prigozin said he had founded the group in 2014.
The United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom have imposed several sanctions on Wagner, but he is allowed to work in Russia, even though its law prohibits mercenary activities.
Bots and trolls
Another way that Yevgeny Prigozhin got involved in world politics was to rely on people with 'keyboards' rather than soldiers with guns.
For years Prigozhin has been accused of involvement in so-called 'troll farms', which use accounts on social media and websites to spread pro-Kremlin views or propaganda. Such efforts were led by the St. Petersburg-based internet research agency IRA, which is known for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was appointed to investigate claims of collusion between Donald Trump's election campaign and Russia, concluded that the IRA ran a social media campaign. The purpose of which was to increase political and social differences in America.
Mueller's report said that after this Trump turned into an act of support and defamation of his electoral rival, Hillary Clinton.
The US imposed sanctions on the IRA and Prigozhin personally for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.
Ukraine is another major target of the IRA's disinformation campaigns and, according to the UK, 'cyber soldiers' with suspected links to Prigozhin have attacked various countries, including the UK, South Africa, and India.
After denying any association with Wagner and suing those who suggested he was behind the troll factories, Prigozhin claimed in February 2023 that he had conceived and run the IRA. are
The Ukraine War
Throughout this period Prigozhin spoke to the media through statements issued by his catering company, Concorde, and avoided public appearances.
This changed after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Months later Prigozin's services were again in demand. After years of denying that Wagner even existed, on July 27, 2022, the Kremlin-controlled media suddenly admitted that the group was fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Prigozhin also began posting videos on social media, apparently filmed in occupied parts of Ukraine, boasting of Wagner's achievements there.
Until then, no other private military company in the world had access to so much war equipment, including warplanes, helicopters, and tanks, but it soon became clear that Prigozhin's relationship with the Russian military was strained.
He repeatedly criticized senior Russian officials, claiming that the Ministry of Defense had deprived Wagner of ammunition, and at one point even accused the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff of treason.
After several Russian soldiers were killed in Ukraine, Prigozhin was allowed to recruit from prisons. He personally visited several prisons to promise convicted criminals that they could go home free and, after a six-month battle for Wagner in Ukraine, to have their sentences commuted if they survived. will be given.
In one video, he is heard telling the convicts, 'Do you have anyone else who can get you out of this jail, I can get you out of here alive.'
Kremlin needs
British intelligence estimates that about half of Wagner's prisoners deployed to Ukraine are either wounded or killed.
After Prigozhin's relationship with the Ministry of Defense deteriorated, he was barred from recruiting more prisoners in early 2023.
But why does the Kremlin need someone like Prigozhin to spread disinformation and launch a military campaign around the world?
The use of private operatives gives the Russian government room to deny involvement in highly sensitive operations.
The Russian government could use Prigozhin to its advantage by denying any cooperation.
But how did Prigozhin get to this point? Journalist Ilya Zhigalev, who studied Prigozhin's biography in detail, says that there are several reasons for this.
He said that Prigozhin never refused to do dirty work. He had nothing to lose his reputation.
"Another reason was Prigozhin's past," he added, "Putin does not like people with clean reputations or reputations because they are difficult to control." From this point of view, Prigozhin was a workman for them.
In a 2011 interview, Prigozhin said that he had once written a children's book in which the main character "helped the king save his kingdom" and then did "truly heroic" things.
Prigozhin may now be helping President Putin to save his vision for Russia, but his life story is hardly the story of children's fairies or kings.