Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group who openly challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin?

New Delhi/Moscow: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russian private military contractor Wagner Group, recently rattled the Kremlin by ordering his army to march towards Moscow in an open challenge to his former boss and Russia’s all-powerful President Vladimir Putin. The head of the Wagner Group, who has now abandoned that rebellion for exile in Belarus – a settlement that leaves many questions unanswered – has issued a clarification that “the march was not meant to overthrow power in Russia”. ”. Prigozhin said in an audio message that the march towards Moscow was aimed at preventing the destruction of Wagner’s private military company and “bringing justice to those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a large number of mistakes during the special military operation”. Why?” ,

Prigozhin claimed that the march was a protest and was not intended to overthrow power. In explaining his decision to reverse his march on Moscow, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid Russian bloodshed. Prigozhin claimed, “We started our march because of injustice. We went to protest, not to overthrow the government in the country.” Without sharing any details about their location and future plans, Prigozhin said about 30 of his fighters were killed in a Russian military attack on the mercenary group last week.

So, who is Yevgeny Prigozhin and what is the Wagner Group?

Prigozhin is the founder of the Wagner Group – a private army in Russia – that has fought for Russian-backed causes in Ukraine and around the world. Prigozhin was once called ‘Putin’s chef’. He rose to prominence for his apparent role in the Ukraine War, in which his mercenaries were fighting on Moscow’s side after suffering heavy losses to regular Russian troops and losing territory in humiliating setbacks.

Taking full advantage of that situation, Prigozhin later blamed top Russian military commanders for failures in Ukraine, even without fear of any retribution from the Kremlin for his open defiance. Prigozhin’s ongoing feud with the Russian Defense Ministry escalated when Wagner fighters entered the Russian border city of Rostov-on-Don from Ukraine and took control of key military facilities.

Not just that, the Wagner chief also questioned the official Kremlin version of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, the Kremlin has now vowed to punish those involved in “armed rebellion”. Prigozhin was convicted of robbery and assault in 1981 and sentenced to 12 years in prison. After his release, he opened a restaurant business in St. Petersburg in the 1990s.

Putin’s Chef

A St Petersburg native like his boss Putin, Prigozhin, 62, became a wealthy oligarch by winning lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin, earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef”. Both Putin and Prigozhin have known each other since the 1990s. He became known as a ruthless warlord after a 2014 pro-Russia separatist movement in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Around 2014, Prigozhin founded Wagner as a shadowy mercenary organization fighting Russian-backed causes in Ukraine and increasingly around the world.

a media manipulator

According to Katarina Stepanenko, Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a public policy research institute based in Washington, DC, “Prigozin is the mastermind of the media and the mastermind of social media.”

wanted by the fbi

Prigozhin is also wanted by the FBI for “conspiracy to defraud the United States”. The US federal law enforcement agency has announced a US$250,000 reward for information leading to Prigozhin’s arrest for allegedly monitoring political and election interference by the St. Petersburg and Florida-based Internet Research Agency from 2014 to 2018. The agency for which Prigozhin was the primary funder, the FBI alleged, worked to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election.

In addition to fighting in Ukraine, Wagner troops have been very active in Africa, where some nations are turning to Wagner to fill security gaps or promote authoritarian rule. Over time, Prigozhin has helped Putin significantly expand his influence around the world. During Russia’s intervention in the war in Syria. Wagner and his fighters helped Putin and remain on the ground in the Middle Eastern country several years later. Wagner’s mercenaries have been accused of atrocities, including mass murder and rape, throughout Africa and in Ukraine in collaboration with Russian forces.