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Yevgeny Prigozhin is a Russian businessman with close ties to Vladimir Putin.
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Prigozhin claimed he founded Wagner, a Russian mercenary group that works closely with the Kremlin.
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According to the WaPo report, he also confided to Putin that he was concerned about the direction of the war in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is said to have shared his doubts about the war in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin, according to The Washington Post.
In September, as reports circulated about Russia’s losses in Ukraine, a member of Vladimir Putin’s circle expressed doubts about the Kremlin’s management of the war to the president.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the confidant was Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a Russian businessman, restaurateur and a longtime ally of Putin.
Prigozhin denied the report to The Post, saying he “did not criticize the management of the Russian Federation’s armed forces during the conflict in Ukraine.”
But Prigozhin has previously criticized the country’s military leadership.
When the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramazan Kadyrov, called out a Russian commander and senior officers after Russia was expelled from Lyman in Ukraine, Prigozhin echoed those criticisms, the BBC said.
Here’s what we know about Prigozhin:
Before amassing his wealth, Prigozhin served in a Russian penal colony for several years.
Born on June 1, 1961 in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, Russia, Prigozhin was convicted in 1981 of assault, theft and fraud, according to court documents obtained by Meduza, an independent Russian publication.
He was sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony, but was released in nine years around the fall of the Soviet Union.
According to The New York Times, Prigozhin began his foray into the food industry shortly after his release by opening a hot dog stand.
He then opened a supermarket before starting a chain of upscale restaurants with a few partners in St. Petersburg. Putin was due to celebrate his birthday at the dining venue, the Times reported.
He earned the nickname of “Putin’s chief.”
Prigozhin founded one of his major companies, Concord Catering, in 1996 when he started his restaurant business, Wired reported.
Although he wasn’t much of a chef, according to The Times, he was soon nicknamed “Putin’s chef.”
It’s unclear when he got the nickname, but over the next decade Prigozhin’s catering business received lucrative government contracts to feed Russia’s schools and military, as well as the opportunity to host state banquets.
Concord Catering served at the inaugurations of Dmitri A. Medvedev and Putin, The Times reported.
The state contracts over the span of five years were reportedly worth $3.1 billion, according to an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Foundation cited by The Times.
He also heads other companies and financed a company accused of meddling in the US election.
In addition to his catering business, it is widely known that Prigozhin founded Concord Management and Consulting Company and started his own online news service, according to The Times.
A 2018 Justice Department indictment also alleged that Prigozhin funded a so-called troll factory known as the Internet Research Agency.
The indictment, which included 12 other Russians and Prigozhin’s Concord catering and consulting firms, alleged that the Internet Research Agency was “engaged in operations to disrupt elections and political processes.”
The company did this, among other things, by creating “fake American personas” and running social media pages discussing politics and social issues. Prigozhin denied his involvement.
“Americans are very impressionable people; they see what they want to see,” Prigozhin told Ria Novosti, a Russian state news agency. “I have a lot of respect for them. I’m not mad at all that I ended up on this list. If they want to see the devil, show them.”
He recently claimed that he founded Wagner, a Russian mercenary group, after years of denial.
In September, Prigozhin claimed to be a founding member of a Russian mercenary group known as Wagner, after denying involvement with the organization for years.
“I cleaned up the old weapons myself, picked out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this. From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which would later be called the Wagner Battalion”, said. Prigozhin through his press service, who confirmed the statement to Reuters.
Wagner was founded in 2014. It is not a legally registered entity and mercenaries are illegal under Russian law, according to The Times. But the group is still often seen as a de facto private military service for the Kremlin.
According to the BBC, Wagner troops were first deployed during Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Wagner also sent soldiers across Africa and the Middle East, according to The Times. UN investigators accused the group of committing war crimes in 2021.
More recently, Wagner has aided Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In March, US officials said at least 1,000 mercenaries had been deployed to the country.
“We know they’re there,” Pentagon press secretary John F. Kirby said at a briefing in March. “And we know they want to increase their presence there in Ukraine.”
In recent decades, the oligarch has earned Putin’s ear.
Prigozhin has become a close confidant of Putin, even in matters of state, after first coming into contact with the Russian leader through his restaurants.
With his supposed control over the Wagner mercenary group, he was also an influential player during the Russian war in Ukraine, personally voicing his concerns about operations on Putin, according to The Washington Post.
The newspaper reported that a US intelligence report found that Prigozhin felt that the Russian Defense Ministry was overly dependent on Wagner and that his organization was not receiving enough money.
US officials believe Prigozhin subsequently made a video in which Wagner’s troops complained about the lack of funds as a way to pressure Russia into providing more money, The Post reported.
Prigozhin told The Post that he had not seen the video referenced.
Read the original article on Business Insider
