The conflict in Ukraine has allowed the boss of the paramilitary group Wagner to establish himself as a major player in Russia. But with the unpredictable warlord turning on the Russian military leaders themselves, Yevgeny Prigozhin has posed the biggest threat yet to Putin's dictatorship.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday vigorously denounced Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “treason”, warning that it risks triggering a “civil war”.
The impetuous billionaire – also known as "Putin's chef" due to his previous business in the catering industry – claimed to have seized the Russian army's strategic stronghold in Rostov “without a shot”. The military base served as the nerve centre of operations in Ukraine.
Prigozhin's criticism of the Russian army has been growing louder as he lambasted generals for tactics that led to the deaths of Wagner fighters. But on Friday he says that Russian forces actually bombed his group’s camps, driving his decision to mutiny.
BREAKING:
The Wagner Group has smashed through the first road barriers on the way to Moscow pic.twitter.com/LdzVXjqy7L — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 24, 2023
Claiming to have “25,000” fighters “ready to die”, the 62-year-old mercenary leader called on the Russian army and population to join him, while denying any “military coup”.
Master of provocation
The conflict in Ukraine seemed to have provided a golden opportunity for Prigozhin to emerge from the shadows and finally assert himself as a major player in Russia.
In May 2023, after months of hard and bloody fighting, he claimed that his mercenaries had captured Bakhmut (eastern Ukraine), marking a rare battlefield victory for Russian forces.
But it was also during this battle that tensions with the Russian general staff increased: Prigozhin accused the top brass of depriving Wagner of ammunition and published numerous videos in which he insulted Russian commanders – unthinkable for anyone else in Russia.
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The Wagner group is one of around ten private armies present in Russia, though is the most influential. Not only instrumental in the Ukraine conflict, the group is active in strategic African regions as well as Syria and Libya. Many of its fighters are ex-convicts, often released from Russian prisons in order to join the forces.
Billionaire
To build an army to match his ambitions, Prigozhin – a native of St Petersburg like Putin – recruits thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine in exchange for amnesty.
Prigozhin knows the prison world well, having spent nine years in detention himself during the Soviet era for common crimes. He was released in 1990, just as the USSR was collapsing. He went on to set up a successful business selling hot dogs.
He then moved upmarket, eventually opening a luxury restaurant in St Petersburg, the same city where Vladimir Putin was simultaneously experiencing his own political rise.
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After Putin became president in 2000, his catering group officiated at the Kremlin, earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef” and the reputation of having become a billionaire thanks to public contracts.
It was this money that he is said to have used to found Wagner, a private army initially made up of hardened veterans of the Russian army and special services.
