Evgeny Prighozin (Leningrad, 1961). founder and owner wagner group He started in the food business in the 1990s, first selling hot dogs, then running a restaurant and eventually running a company called Concord Catering, which now serves as the parent company of the Wagner Group and has become a favorite of the Russian government.
Concord and its related entities have received more than $3 billion in government contracts. Food supplier for the Russian army, supplies Moscow schools with food.
With a history of assaults, robberies, thefts, YP got out of prison in 1990 and began its rise in the food world with a business in Leningrad, then the capital of Russia, named after Lenin, after the fall of the USSR in 1991. was an oasis for organized crime.
Russian oligarch known as “The” Putin’s cook After joining his elite circle in 2001, he amassed a fortune and started heading to the city’s liveliest spot, New Island, an upscale floating restaurant on a river in Saint Petersburg. The President of Russia took French President Jacques Chirac to dinner with iced caviar, which would become the real start of Prighozin’s gastronomic empire. A good meal leads to a long and close relationship.
The Official Hero of the Russian Federation is a man who is officially rich in the hotel business. “Each of our banquets is like a work of art.”
The Wagner Group (GW), formed to do the Kremlin’s dirty work in eastern Ukraine, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, Syria, etc. – a network of private unincorporated Russian mercenaries paid for by front companies. , many of which are affiliated with Concord Catering—achieving goals that officials do not want to be linked to the Russian government.
When Russia invaded in 2014 Crimea and eastern Ukraine, GW -By order of Moscow- was responsiblesoftening” preliminary, before he started invading Ukraine, a democratically elected sovereign country.
This special operation It didn’t turn out to be exactly a military parade. On the one hand, due to the Kremlin’s miscalculations and steps, which turned out to be incapable of dominating the country while the regular armed forces expected rapid conquest and suffered heavy losses.
On the other hand, the resistance of the Ukrainians turned into a headache for Putin, who now lacks men and needs them. The use of gangs specializing in war crimes—Syrians, Chechens, North Koreans, etc.—shows Putin’s helplessness.
for Putin’s cook He was seen personally recruiting prisoners, including convicted murderers, to support Russian front-line forces. A network of mercenaries, or the Russian President’s de facto private army, the private army is seen as crucial to Putin’s front-line war effort as allegations of regular forces fail.
It is paradoxical that today’s Russia, which cannot/will not pay a very low salary to its reservists, spends a lot of money recruiting mercenaries as it is currently doing.
And a fundamental question is, how can you recruit prisoners for “?struggle” What if there is no “war” in Ukraine in Ukraine?
Wagner Group embodies a mix of oligarchy and authoritarianismboth components will be classified as a terrorist organization that fled conflict with conventional forces and left the bodies of their comrades after fleeing the conflict (for example, in Donetsk).
They make up for what Wagner’s Russian mercenaries lack in military training with bullying, turmoil, and violence. In 2018, they were defeated by a small group of US special forces – the Green Berets and Marines – in the battle of Kasham (Syria), in which about 300 people died in 4 hours.
Accused of atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Kremlin sent 175 military trainers to the OAC, and Russia won gold and diamond mining concessions.
In 2018, three Russian journalists were shot and killed in an ambush while trying to investigate the suspected link between the mines and the gang group, and no one has been charged so far.
Last month, Putin hosted 43 African leaders at the Black Sea resort town of Sochi at a meeting where he highlighted Russia’s new global ambition.
When Guardian When Prigozhin was asked about the alleged GW atrocities in Mali, Putin’s chief denied that Wagner even existed, then added: “You’re an endangered group of perverts.”
Ukraine claims to have destroyed an obscure headquarters of Wagner’s private army while visiting the front-line base at Prigozhin Popasna. In the Russian-occupied Luhansk region. However, the reports that he was killed in the daring attack are yet to be confirmed.
A source reported that the businessman was wounded by a long-range missile from the High-Motion Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and was immediately evacuated to the Burdenko hospital in Moscow. Another source close to Wagner denied that Prigozhin was killed: “It’s not the first time he’s been buried.”.
Ukraine is taking up arms to face the Russian invasion, and the results prove it. they won the battle of Kiev and Kharkov with Javelins (anti-tank and portable missiles); He stopped the Russian offensive in Donbas with advanced howitzers and is about to recapture Kherson, Ukraine’s first city under Russian control, on the border of the annexed Crimean peninsula, with HIMARS (missiles that can damage previously inaccessible positions). for Ukrainian artillery).
From a hot dog kiosk to an elite restaurant—New Island—from prison to the upper echelons of power in Russia, the Russian oligarch Prighozin, whom the United States has accused of running a “factory.” trolls” During the 2016 presidential election, he received a dizzying pace from the industry, circulating the Internet to influence his elections and spearhead a disinformation campaign. Catering to politics.
Prigozhin ignored the accusation: “Americans are very impressionable people; they see what they want to see. I don’t feel sorry for being on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him.”.