Yevgeni Prigozhin
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| “ | We will all go to hell, but in hell we will be the best. | „ |
| ~ Yevgeni Prigozhin |
| “ | I have been avoiding the blows of many opponents for a long time with one main goal — not to substitute these guys, who are the basis of Russian patriotism. | „ |
| ~ Yevgeni Prigozhin |
Yevgeny Prigozhin was one Russian mercenary leader and an oligarch. He headed the private military company Wagner Group and was a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin before the uprising began in June 2023 Prigozhin was sometimes called "Putin's chef" because he owned restaurants and catering establishments that provided services to the Kremlin. Once convicted in the Soviet Union, Prigozhin controlled a network of influential companies whose activities, according to the 2020 investigation, It was "closely integrated with the Russian Ministry of Defense and its intelligence unit, the GRU."
In 2014, Prigozhin reportedly founded the Wagner Group to support pro-Russian paramilitary groups in Ukraine. Funded by the Russian state, it played a significant role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine and supported Russian interests in Syria and Africa. In November 2022, Prigozhin acknowledged the interference of his companies in the elections in the United States. In February 2023, he confirmed that he is the founder and long-time head of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company engaged in online propaganda and disinformation campaigns.
Entrepreneurial activity
In 1990, together with his stepfather, he organized a hot dog chain in Leningrad.
In 1993, he became the manager of the supermarket chain "Contrast".
By 1995, the chain had grown to 10 stores. In 1995, Prigozhin opened a bar-shop "Wine Club" on Vasilievsky Island.
In December 1996, together with partners, he opened the first elite restaurant in St. Petersburg "Old Customs" in the building of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The invested 350 thousand dollars paid off in five months, and by the end of the year the first million dollars was earned. In 1996, he opened a catering business — the Concord Catering company.
In the spring of 1998, Prigozhin opened the restaurant "New Island", which became a popular place with the financial and political elite.
In the summer of 1999, Sergei Stepashin and IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus met there.
In 2001, a dinner of the Presidents of Russia and France, Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac, was held on board the New Island.
In May 2002, Vladimir Putin hosted George W. Bush.
In the fall of 2003, Putin celebrated his birthday on the ship.
Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2010 From 2002 to 2012, he developed the fast food chain "Damn! Donalts". The opening of one of the restaurants in 2003 was attended by the Governor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Yakovlev and the President of Chile Ricardo Lagos. The chain was aimed at the general population, offering "Russian fast food", including the well-known "kvadrososison", and by 2008 had grown to 10 establishments, serving as the basis for the creation of Prigozhin format of food factories. In 2011, the last of the chain's eight restaurants closed.
From the 2000s to the end of his life he participated in construction projects.
Since 2010, the company owned by Prigozhin's wife has been renting the House of the Eliseev Brothers Trading Partnership. After the reconstruction, it housed the "Shop of the Eliseev merchants".
In the summer of 2016, the company secured the right to privatize the building for 740 million rubles[51]. In the Lakhta area, the Concord company has built a residential complex "Northern Versailles" of 45 three-storey houses in the style of architecture of St. Petersburg of the XVIII—XIX centuries with its own park area. The project was particularly noted by the Governor Vladimir Yakovlev.
In 2016, the publication "Fontanka.ru" wrote that the complex additionally fenced off an area of 7.5 hectares and thereby closed the passage to the Lakhtinsky spill, which is illegal. In 2008, Yevgeny Prigozhin's company received a plot next to the 300th Anniversary of St. Petersburg Park for the construction of a Water Tourism Center on Primorsky Avenue. In 2011, the company filed a lawsuit against the city Government, demanding that the delay in the allocation of the site be recognized as illegal. In 2012, the courts of three instances confirmed the rights of the investor. By March 2016, the company had built the Lakhta Plaza complex of six residential buildings with a total area of 41.9 thousand m2. In 2011, Concord received a permit for the construction of a "medical rehabilitation center" with an area of about 56 thousand m2. In 2015, the company commissioned 18 three-storey buildings for 490 apartments, 60 three-storey cottages, a SPA center with a fitness area and a restaurant.
In July 2015, RBC wrote that for the period from the end of 2014 to the middle of 2015, Concord structures won tenders for 10.3 billion rubles for cleaning barracks and educational institutions of the Ministry of Defense. The Megaline company associated with Prigozhin received a contract for 3.3 billion rubles and since September 2015 has been building a military base in Valuyki, Belgorod region. The same company won a competition for a pre-built military camp for 161.6 million rubles in the village of Svetloy in the Omsk region. In the fall of 2015, a number of companies that are believed to be associated with Concorde won tenders announced by a subsidiary of the Ministry of Defense. According to the contract, the companies must take over housing and communal services of military camps in the Moscow, Bryansk and Tver regions for 26 billion rubles. In total, in 2015, all companies associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to RBC, received contracts from the Ministry of Defense for catering, cleaning and construction services for 68.6 billion rubles.
In 2018, Vladimir Putin, in an interview with journalists (Megyn Kelly from NBC and Armin Wolf from ORF), confirmed that he personally knew Prigozhin, but denied his connection with the state, comparing Prigozhin with entrepreneur George Soros.
On October 30, 2019, Yevgeny Prigozhin's main asset, the Concord Food Processing Plant company, was divided into two equal parts between him and 27—year-old Tomsk lawyer Ekaterina Roslikova.
On July 19, 2023, the company "Concord Management and Consulting" was registered in the village of Tsel Osipovichi district of Mogilev region. It is there that the camp is located, where, after the mutiny in Russia, the mercenaries of the PMCs "Wagner" arrived.
Media and propaganda activities
One of the former offices of the agency on Savushkina Street, 55 Prigozhin was associated with the activities of the Newspaper about Newspapers, whose employees in 2012-2013 were engaged in "cleansing the media market of lies and contributing to the exposure of false and corrupt media." This was done through attempts to introduce their employees into independent publications and the subsequent filing of lawsuits against them due to the publication of non-existent interviews previously placed on an advertising basis. One of the episodes directed against Forbes was covered in the NTV program "Emergency".
Employees of Prigozhin's firms supplied food and provided security for a number of protest actions in 2012, in order to collect information about future actions and protest leaders, as well as materials for the documentary "Anatomy of Protest". Prigozhin is one of the organizers and financier of the critical documentary about the political opposition "Anatomy of Protest" and "troll Factory", which is associated with his company "Glavset" (since July 2015, it was located at 55 Savushkina Street).
In September 2013, the media became aware of the existence of the "Internet Research Agency" in St. Petersburg at 55 Savushkina Street, also referred to in the press and other sources as the "troll factory", "Prigozhinsky trolls", "Olga trolls", "Kremlebots", whose employees were engaged in posting posts and comments of pro-government and anti-opposition orientation on the Internet and social networks. In May 2014, the hacker group Anonymous International published data according to which the financing was carried out by Yevgeny Prigozhin's structures.
In the following years, several former employees told the media about their work at the agency. They confirmed that the key tasks of the employees are writing and posting pro-government posts and comments on various websites and forums, as well as discrediting opposition figures. According to the former employee, the agency worked around the clock, with working shifts of 12 hours, the employee's earnings were 40,000 rubles a month.
The US Department of Justice has accused the agency of interfering in American political life, including the US presidential election, since 2014. The indictment alleges that agency employees, regularly visiting the United States, published false information on social networks, placed political ads, organized street rallies and came into contact with employees of Donald Trump's election headquarters.
According to an investigation by RBC magazine in June 2017, Yevgeny Prigozhin may be behind the creation and financing of one of the country's largest media holdings, which adheres to a loyal position towards the authorities. In May-June 2014, the "Federal News Agency" was launched, eventually growing to a network of 16 news sites known as the "Media Factory". The press service of the company "Concord" strongly denied any connection of Prigozhin with these online publications.
By February 2017, the monthly audience of the publications reached 36 million people, exceeding the figures of RIA Novosti and Komsomolskaya Pravda. At that time, the Medialogia monitoring system ranked the Federal News Agency seventh in citation among the Russian media. The total number of employees is estimated at 225-250 people. In the spring of 2019, a commenting department appeared inside the FAN, whose employees leave comments under media publications in social networks.
On October 4, 2019, Open Media announced the creation of the Patriot media holding, which included part of the publications of the Media Factory (Federal News Agency, People's News, Economy Today and Politics Today). By this time, the monthly audience of the publications was: 15, 4.4, 3.8 and 0.3 million readers. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, in 2018 the total revenue of all four publications amounted to about 300 million rubles, the Board of Trustees of which was headed by Evgeny Prigozhin. The address of the media holding is located in the residential complex of business class "Lakhta Plaza", the developer of which is his company "Concord Management and Consulting". The purpose of the holding is stated to be "the maximum dissemination of information about the events taking place in Russia to create a favorable information space aimed at the development of the country and countering those media outlets that promote negative information and do not notice the good that is happening in the country." The structure was headed by 35-year—old Nikolay Stolyarchuk, the head of the pro-Kremlin party "Young Russia" liquidated in 2018 and a lawyer for the Foundation for the Protection of National Values. The total working staff of the media holding was 400 people.
Since the morning of June 30, 2023, the websites of seven media related to the entrepreneur (including "Economy Today", "Politics Today", "Nevsky News", "People's News") have ceased to be updated, since the mutiny the number of publications has decreased; the Patriot website has ceased to be available. On the same day, Nevsky Novosti, Ekonomika Segodnya and RIA FAN announced the termination of work.
According to the publication "The Bell", Prigozhin in 2020 financed the telegram channel Rybar, who from June 2020 to August 2021 led a column on the FAN site, had his own tag there and distributed comments in the podcast "International FAN". The account became famous in 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a pro-war account.
In March 2022, some of Prigozhin's employees became employees of the online publication Readovka.
Sponsored the release of the films "Rzhev", "Shugaley", "Shugaley-2", "Tourist", "Granite" and "The Best in Hell". The premiere of several paintings took place on the NTV channel. Presumably, the painting "The Sun" was also shot with Prigozhin's money. Prigozhin's films were broadcast on state television, but at an untimely time [what?]; recognizable actors participated in them, but not massively popular.
PMCs "Wagner"
"'PMCs "Wagner"
My political credo: I love my homeland, I obey Putin, Shoigu for soap, we will continue to fight.
Evgeny Prigozhin, May 24, 2023 In the summer of 2016, the publication "Fontanka.ru" connected Yevgeny Prigozhin with the head of the Wagner Group — Dmitry Utkin. Among the entourage of the latter, the head of the security service of one of the entrepreneur's firms, Yevgeny Gulyaev, was found. According to The Bell, the PMCs was funded by the proceeds from state contracts of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
In 2014-2015, Wagner's private military company participated in clashes in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Since the fall of 2015, Wagner's PMCs has been taking part in the Syrian campaign, in particular, participated in the liberation of Palmyra. In June 2017, Wagner's PMCs was included in the US sanctions list. Journalists Orkhan Dzhemal, Alexander Rastorguyev and Kirill Radchenko, who died during the investigation on the territory of the country, were investigating the activities of the Wagner PMCs in the CAR. Many media outlets, public figures and organizations (including Dzhemal's close friend Maxim Shevchenko) have linked the death of journalists to the activities of Prigozhin, who denies his involvement in their murder. Dossier and MBH-Media in 2019 reported on a film being prepared by Prigozhin's structures about the work of the PMCs in the CAR, showing the activities of the Wagner group as peacemaking.
External video files"'
YouTube logo Evgeny Prigozhin recruits prisoners to the Wagner PMCs Since July 2022, a number of media outlets have reported a visit to prison colonies by a man with a Hero of Russia star, similar to Yevgeny Prigozhin. According to them, he began a recruitment tour with colonies for former security forces, and then switched to high-security institutions. The businessman offered prisoners to take part in hostilities as part of the PMCs in exchange for pardon, removal of criminal record, passport of the Russian Federation and cash payments (100 thousand per month, 5 million — in case of death). After the visit of recruiters, prisoners of two colonies in the Tula and Yaroslavl regions were deprived of the Zonatelecom service provided[significance of the fact?] connections with the outside world[91][92]. In September 2022, a video appeared confirming the recruitment of prisoners personally by Prigozhin, filmed in the maximum security colony No. 6 in Mari.
Also, Prigozhin's structures are associated with the training of special forces of the Syrian army "Hunters for ISIS" (ISIS Hunters), whose operations against terrorists are characterized by extreme cruelty. In July 2022, due to Medusa's request to Prigozhin about the participation of Wagner's PMCs in the war between Russia and Ukraine, he asked the chairman of the Investigative Committee to conduct an audit and, "if there are grounds," open a criminal case against Tatiana Ershova, the editorial director of Medusa, and Lilia Yapparova, a special correspondent of the publication, on articles about the spread of "fakes" about the Russian army (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code) and on treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code.
On September 26, 2022, the press service of the Concord company published a letter in which Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed the fact that he is the creator of the Wagner PMCs. He named May 1, 2014 as the date of the group's formation: its initial backbone was made up of Russian volunteers who wanted to go to Donbass. Prigozhin said that in previous years he tried not to advertise his connection with Wagner, so as not to frame any of the members of the group.
The murder of Yevgeny Prigozin"'
In November 2022, a telegram channel affiliated with the Wagner PMCs published a video of the massacre of prisoner Yevgeny Nuzhin. In the video, the man says that he was abducted from Kiev and "will be judged." Then Nuzhin's head is smashed with a sledgehammer. Yevgeny Nuzhin was recruited into the Wagner PMCs in one of the Russian prisons where he was serving his sentence and sent to Ukraine. In early September, he surrendered. The owner of Wagner's PMCs, Yevgeny Prigozhin, called the video of the murder "an excellent director's work," adding that the murder was "fair." Subsequently, Prigozhin appealed to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov with a request to verify the fact and circumstances of Nuzhin's murder, indicating in his statement that the Wagner PMC operations center is investigating the version of events according to which Nuzhin "was recruited by the CIA and went to prison in advance for 27 years in order to infiltrate the PMCs and create conditions for his execution". Prigozhin also called for the mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
"'PMCs Wagner Center'"
PMCs Wagner Center At the end of October 2022, information about the appearance of the Wagner Center in St. Petersburg appeared for the first time in little-known telegram channels. Later, on October 29 and 31, Yevgeny Prigozhin, through his press service, confirmed the information about the creation of such a center, and also stated that its opening is scheduled for November 4, 2022. The center is located in the building of the Sea Capital business center in the Nevsky district of St. Petersburg.
Prigozhin himself described the mission of the center as follows:
"PMK Wagner Center" is a complex of buildings in which there are places for free accommodation of inventors, designers, IT specialists, experimental production and startup spaces. The mission of the Wagner Center PMC is to provide a comfortable environment for generating new ideas in order to increase Russia's defense capability, including information"
Political activity"'
The media wrote about the conflict between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov due to the parliamentary elections of 2021, when candidates close to the entrepreneur could not register to participate in the elections.
On April 16, 2022, the State Duma deputy from United Russia, Vitaly Milonov, published a joint photo with Yevgeny Prigozhin: in the picture they are dressed in camouflage, smiling against the background of the school building No. 2 in the city of Pervomaisk, Luhansk region, captured by Russian troops.
In August 2022, he appeared at the civil memorial service for Daria Dugina.
In October 2022, against the backdrop of failures in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he supported the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, in criticizing the commander of the Central Military District, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin.
On November 7, 2022, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced that he was interfering in the midterm elections to the US Congress and planned to continue doing so. The speaker of the US State Department expressed the opinion that Prigozhin probably had Putin's approval for such statements. Prigozhin was sanctioned by the United States for interfering in the US presidential election in 2016, with the help of his "Internet Research Agency", which spread misinformation and discord on social networks.
By the fall of 2022, founder Yevgeny Prigozhin began to appear more and more often in the public field and increase his influence in Russia.
In November 2022, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced that he had invested up to 2 billion rubles in the election campaign of the mayor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov in 2019. Prigozhin, who is a political opponent of Beglov, said that the mayor "has always been an extremely low-level manager."
Conflict with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation"'
From about the end of 2022, Prigozhin began to criticize and conflict with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, insulting military leaders, demanding ammunition and accusing them of great sacrifices during the battles for Bakhmut.
On the afternoon of June 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin released a large interview with harsh accusations against the leadership of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in which he stated that the Russian Defense Ministry deliberately deceived the Russian public and Vladimir Putin about the upcoming offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with NATO support in 2022 and about the strengthening of "Ukrainian military aggression" before the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 year. Prigozhin said that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was ready for negotiations, but the Russian leadership refused them because of its "maximalist positions." Also, the founder of the Wagner PMCs accused the oligarchs and the Russian military leadership of launching a full-scale invasion to obtain assets of the occupied Ukrainian territories, higher military ranks, military awards and for "self-promotion".
Armed rebellion"'
On the evening of June 23, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin reported that Russian troops had attacked the positions of the Wagner PMCs. On June 24, Meduza published an article exposing the claim that the attack on the PMCs camp was staged. The same evening, Prigozhin announced the beginning of an armed conflict with the Ministry of Defense. In a message published in the telegram channel of his press service, there were also calls for revenge and insults against Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and a "March of Justice" was announced. In addition, in his next address, Prigozhin stated that his 25,000-strong army "is going to figure out why lawlessness is happening in the country," and urged everyone to join.
The National Anti-Terrorist Committee of Russia announced the initiation of a criminal case by the FSB under Article 279 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (call for armed rebellion) in connection with Prigozhin's statements. Vladimir Putin, during an address on state TV channels, called the rebellion "betrayal" and "treason", as well as a "stab in the back", and promised that all those who took the path of rebellion "will suffer inevitable punishment." Yevgeny Prigozhin commented on Vladimir Putin's appeal: "The president was deeply mistaken about the betrayal of the motherland... And no one is going to turn himself in at the request of the president, the FSB or anyone else"[.
On the night of June 24, the Wagner PMCs entered Rostov-on-Don and blocked key facilities in the city [133], including the headquarters of the Southern Military District[134].
In the afternoon, the authorities of the Voronezh region reported on the movement of vehicles along the federal highway M-4 "Don" in the direction of Voronezh. Meanwhile, information about the battles between the Wagner PMCs and the Ministry of Defense in the Voronezh Region appeared in the telegram channels. A little later, a convoy of the Wagner PMCs moving along the M4 highway towards Moscow was spotted in the Lipetsk region.
On the evening of June 24, President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, in coordination with Vladimir Putin, held talks with Prigozhin, as reported by the press service of the Belarusian president. Prigozhin, allegedly, accepted Lukashenko's proposal to stop the movement of the Wagner PMCs column through Russia and "further steps to de-escalate tension." A little later, Prigozhin said that the mercenaries, not reaching 200 kilometers to Moscow, "deploy their columns" and "go in the opposite direction to the field camps according to the plan." According to the results of the agreement, Prigozhin must go to Belarus, and the criminal case against him under Article 279 ("Armed rebellion") of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation will be terminated. According to official data, Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on June 27; according to the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus Viktor Khrenin, supported by President Lukashenko, "such a <Wagnerian> unit in the <Belarusian> army would not hurt."
On June 29, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, announced that the FSB of the Russian Federation had received an order to kill Prigozhin. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, on the contrary, is sure that Putin does not intend to "wet" Prigozhin.
On June 29, Putin met with Prigozhin and 35 commanders of the Wagner PMCs, expressed his opinion about the mutiny, assessed the company's combat operations at the front and listened to the commanders' explanations about the events that took place, offered them further employment opportunities. The meeting was first officially announced only on July 10, after many sources reported on Prigozhin's stay in Moscow and St. Petersburg. At the same time, on June 29, Putin's press secretary Peskov was also asked about Prigozhin's whereabouts - but then he assured that the Kremlin did not know where he was.
Subsequent events"'
In early July 2023, it was reported that Prigozhin returned to Russia and received back his personal weapons previously seized by law enforcement agencies, and 10 billion rubles seized during searches were also returned to him. On July 6 , 2023 , President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said: "As for Yevgeny Prigozhin, he is in St. Petersburg. Where is he this morning? Maybe he went to Moscow in the morning. It does not exist on the territory of Belarus."
Death"'
Main article: The crash of Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane On August 23, 2023, at approximately 18:40, an Embraer Legacy 600 plane crashed on the territory of the Tver Region while en route from Sheremetyevo to St. Petersburg, killing 10 people. Kommersant with a link to the portal data planespotters.net clarifies that the Wagner Group bought this aircraft in 2020. According to the results of a genetic examination conducted by the Investigative Committee of Russia, Yevgeny Prigozhin was among the dead.
On August 24, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the disaster. He expressed condolences to the families of the victims, noting that among the passengers were employees of the private security company "Wagner". Mentioning Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin described him as "a man of difficult destiny."
The grave of Yevgeny Prigozhin at the Porokhovsky Cemetery in St. Petersburg
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which during the war in Ukraine often focused on the statements and actions of Yevgeny Prigozhin in its daily reviews, Putin almost certainly gave the order to kill Prigozhin. ISW shares the opinion of those political analysts who see it as no coincidence that the plane crash occurred exactly two months after the uprising broke out. The Research Center recalled that on the morning of the same August 23, the state agency RIA Novosti published information about the removal of General Sergei Surovikin from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces. "The official confirmation of Surovikin's dismissal in the Russian state press on the same day that Prigozhin's murder took place is most likely not a coincidence," the analysts concluded.
On August 29, he was buried at the Porokhovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg; according to the wishes of his relatives, the funeral was held only in their presence and the presence of close friends. CategoryMurderer