The rise of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian founder of the brutal Wagner group whose feud with the Kremlin is spiraling out of control

Yevgeny Prigozhin (left) assists Vladimir Putin during a dinner with foreign scholars and journalists on an equestrian complex outside Moscow, November 11, 2011.

REUTERS/Misha Japaridze/Pool/File Photo

• Yevgeny Prigozhin is a Russian tycoon with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Prigozhin said he founded Wagner, a mercenary group that has played an active role in Ukraine.
• Wagner's involvement in Bakhmut has led Prigozhin to clash heads with some of Putin's top generals.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of a Russian mercenary group known as Wagner, has played an increasingly active role in the war in Ukraine.

Russian billionaire and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on June 17, 2016.

Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Wagner was formed in 2014, but Prigozhin only claimed to be the founder of the group in September last year.

The group is not a legally-registered entity and mercenaries are illegal under Russian law, according to The Times. But it is still 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 throughout 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 and is playing a key role in the battle for Bakhmut. 

 

Prigozhin has previously been described as one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest allies.

Prigozhin is shown prior to a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.

Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool Photo via AP

Prigozhin does not hold any official government position but has become a confidant to the Russian leader for many years, even in matters of state affairs.

 

Before becoming Putin's friend and amassing his wealth, Prigozhin served several years in a Russian penal colony.

Yevgeny Prigozhin on August 9, 2016.

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Born on June 1, 1961, in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, Russia, Prigozhin was convicted of assault, robbery, and fraud in 1981, 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 started his foray into the food business soon after his release by opening up a hot dog stand.

He then opened a convenience store before he started a chain of restaurants with a few partners in St. Petersburg. 

His relationship with Putin began after Prigozhin set up a catering business, which frequently served the Russian leader, earning him the nickname "Putin's chef."

Prigozhin serves Putin dinner at the Cheval Blanc restaurant outside Moscow, Russia, on November 11, 2011.

Misha Japaridze/Pool/Reuters

Prigozhin founded one of his major companies, Concord Catering, in 1996 as he started his restaurant business, Wired reported.

According to The Times, he soon earned the nickname of "Putin's chef." 

It's unclear when he received the moniker, but over the next decade, Prigozhin's catering business received lucrative government contracts to feed Russia's schools and military, as well as an opportunity to host state banquets.

Concord Catering served at the inaugurations of Dmitri A. Medvedev and Putin, the New York Times reported. Putin would also celebrate his birthdays at Prigozhin's restaurants.

The state contracts in a span of five years were reported to be worth $3.1 billion, according to an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Foundation that was cited by The Times.

Prigozhin also head up other companies and financed one that has been accused of meddling with the US election.

Prigozhin at a foreign investors meeting in St. Petersburg in 2016.

Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

As well as his catering business, Prigozhin is publicly known to have founded Concord Management and Consulting Company and started his own online news service, according to The Times.

A 2018 indictment from the Justice Department also alleged that Prigozhin financed 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 businesses, alleged that the Internet Research Agency "engaged in operations to interfere with elections and political processes."

The company did so in part by creating "false US personas" and operating social media pages discussing politics and social issues.

Prigozhin previously denied his involvement, but on November 7, 2022, he admitted to interfering in Western elections in a post on the Russian social media site VKontakte.

"We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere," Prigozhin said. "Carefully, accurately, surgically, and in our own way, as we know how to do."

"During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once," Prigozhin added, alluding to the surgical-like nature of the operation.

Over the decades, the oligarch has earned the ear of Putin. When Putin's invasion of Ukraine faltered, Prigozhin told him where he was going wrong.

Prigozhin shows Putin his school lunch factory outside Saint Petersburg on September 20, 2010.

ALEXEY DRUZHININ/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

With his control of the Wagner mercenary group, he's also been an influential player during Russia's war in Ukraine.

But as reports of Russia's losses in Ukraine circulated in September last year, Prigozhin expressed misgivings about the Kremlin's management of the war to Putin, the Washington Post reported at the time. 

Prigozhin denied the report to The Post and said that he "did not criticize the management of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during the conflict in Ukraine."

But Prigozhin has previously expressed criticism against the country's military leadership.

When the Chechen Republic's head, Ramazan Kadyrov, called out a Russian commander and senior officers after Russia was forced out of Lyman in Ukraine, Prigozhin echoed those critiques, according to BBC. 

 

 

 

 

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine wore on, Prigozhin began recruiting convicts to serve in the Wagner Group, and by extension help the Kremlin in its fight.

Prigozhin addresses former convicts as he releases them from serving in his mercenary army, according to state-controlled media

RIA Novosti

In September, footage emerged of a man strongly resembling Prigozhin addressing convicts in a Russian prison yard. 

In it, the man offered a deal: fight for the Wagner Group in Ukraine for six months, and you get a pardon. Those who sign up and then run away will be executed, he said. 

—Dmitri (@wartranslated) September 14, 2022

 

The video echoed reporting by The Wall Street Journal that Wagner was recruiting fighters from Russian prisons, something that was later confirmed by Russian state media. 

In January this year, Russian state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti shared footage of what it described as Prigozhin releasing his first batch of convicts from service. 

He told the newly-pardoned men that society should respect them — and casually warned them against committing new crimes, like rape. 

"Don't drink, don't use drugs, don't rape broads, behave yourselves," he said.

Prigozhin's threat that he would punish any recruited prisoner who deserted was chillingly backed up in November 2022.

A helmet of a soldier is seen after Russian Forces withdrew from Balakliia, Ukraine, on September 15, 2022.

Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Video emerged of the brutal killing of a man who identified himself as Yevgeny Nuzhin, and who said he had signed up to serve with Wagner as a prisoner but then surrendered to Ukraine. He said he was told he would face retribution.

It is unclear who committed the execution.

Prigozhin acknowledged the video by calling Nuzhin a "traitor" in a statement that celebrated the man's death.

But in February 2023, Prigozhin announced that he was stopping the recruitment of prisoners. Several reports emerged that many convicts refused to join because they were worried they would simply for used as "cannon fodder" in Ukraine.

Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin attends the funeral of his fighters at the Beloostrovskoye cemetery outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on December 24, 2022.

AP Photo

Prigozhin said in a Telegram statement in February that the mercenary organization has now "completely" stopped recruiting prisoners. He offered no explanation for this.

A prisoner in Russia's Tula region told the independent Russian media outlet Meduza in a report that inmates no longer want "even to discuss the possibility" of joining the war in Ukraine.

"One of the prisoners who left [with Wagner Group] told me that after he asked [Wagner] representatives how much training there would be, [they told him], 'The battlefield will be your training.' It's quite possible that they're already directly participating [in combat]," the prisoner told Meduza.

In February, Prigozhin said the number of Wagner units "will decrease", saying that the group "will also not be able to carry out the scope of tasks that we would like to."

Source: Insider, The Guardian

The announcement also sparked rumors about a growing rift between Prigozhin and Putin after the Wagner Group grabbed headlines.

A mural depicting mercenaries of Russia's Wagner Group reads: "Wagner Group - Russian knights."

AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic

Russian state media have been told by the Kremlin to stop promoting Prigozhin and his group, according to Reuters. 

"The position of the (Kremlin) political bloc is not to let him into politics. They are a little afraid of him and find him an inconvenient person," Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin advisor, told Reuters.

But Prigozhin assured a Russian interviewer that he had "zero" political ambitions.

Source: Reuters

 

 

Prigozhin has also been taking credit for Wagner's efforts to secure some territorial gains, particularly in the battles in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in what Russian state media described as the salt mines of Soledar, eastern Ukraine, on January 10 2022.

RIA Novosti

Last month, Wagner claimed victory in the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar, only for the Ministry of Defense to later say it was Russian soldiers who took the town.

"They are constantly trying to steal victory from the Wagner PMC [Private Military Company] and talk about the presence of the unknown, only to belittle their merits," Prigozhin said in a statement published by the press service of Concord on its Telegram channel.

Source: Politico

 

This has irked some military officials, including Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who feels like he's being compared to Prigozhin, an intelligence report said.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu at a military meeting at an undisclosed location, on January 17, 2023.

Russian Defence Ministry/Vadim Savitsky/Handout via Reuters

Russia released a video of Shoigu meeting soldiers on a rare visit to Ukraine in early March.

An intelligence report by the British Ministry of Defence said the video was published possibly "in response to recent footage of [Prigozhin] visiting his fighters on the front line."

"Wagner is in a high-profile dispute with the Russian Ministry of Defence and Shoigu is likely sensitive to being compared to Prighozin," the briefing said. 

Last month, Prighozin also attacked Shoigu's son-in-law for apparently liking a series of anti-war posts on social media, calling him a "Z-lowlife," The Daily Beast reported.

Source: British Ministry of Defence

 

Prigozhin published photos of the corpses of dozens of Wagner troops in Bakhmut and directly blamed Shoigu and the Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov for their deaths.

Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (left) attend a ceremony to award Gold Star medals to Heroes of Russia, in Moscow.

Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via Reuters

Prigozhin said that all of the mercenaries were killed on February 21, 2023, and that their deaths could have been avoided if Russia's Defense Ministry would have provided them with ammunition. 

Russia denied his claims.

"All statements allegedly made by assault units on shell shortages are absolutely untrue," it said in a statement published by the BBC. They did not name either Prigozhin or the Wagner group.

Source: BBC, Meduza

But the public feud has led Putin to slowly distance himself from his former friend.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the Eurasian Economic Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on November 9, 2022.

Contributor/Getty Images

In a message on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said that all of his direct lines to the Kremlin have stopped responding. 

"To get me to stop asking for ammunition, all the hotlines to office, to departments, etc., have been cut off from me," Prigozhin said, per a translation from CNN.

"But the real humdinger is that they've also blocked agencies from making decisions," Prigozhin added, per CNN.

Source: Insider

 

Editor's note: This list was first published in October 2022 and has been updated to reflect recent developments.

In May, the feud came to a tipping point when he went ballistic on the Kremlin in an expletive-laden video.

A furious Yevgeny Prigozhin screams at Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov.

Screenshot/Press Service of Prigozhin/Telegram

In the video, released on Telegram, Wagner complained that the mercenary group was running short of ammunition.

"We have a 70% ammo shortage! Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where the [beep] is the ammo?" he said in the video.

He also said that Russian military leaders, like Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, would "have their insides eaten in hell."

"You animals are hanging out in expensive clubs," Prigozhin continued. "Your children are enjoying their lives, making videos for YouTube. Do you think that you are the masters of this life and that you have the right to control their lives?"

Source: Insider 

Shortly after, he announced that he was pulling his troops out of Bakhmut, saying they will retreat to "lick their wounds."

A Ukrainian medic runs through a partially dug trench on the frontline outside Bakhmut on March 5, 2023.

John Moore/Getty Images

"I withdraw units of PMC Wagner because in the absence of ammunition, they are doomed to a senseless death," Prigozhin said in a statement published by his press service on Telegram.

The military boss then published a second video in which he continued to lambast the Russian military, saying they are responsible for the deaths of thousands of Wagner mercenaries. 

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