Yevgeny Prigozhin made his name as the profane and brutal mercenary boss who mounted an armed rebellion that was the most severe and shocking challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
In May, they seized the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in a rare victory for Russia in the war, but Prigozhin complained bitterly about the Defense Ministry’s conduct of the fight, saying it had denied ammunition to his forces.
He called off the action less than 24 hours later in a deal struck by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. As the head of the Internet Research Agency, a “troll farm” that focused on interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, he was barely visible. Afterward, he owned a hot dog stand and then fancy restaurants that drew interest from Putin. In his first term, the Russian leader took then-French President Jacques Chirac to dine at one of them.
In 2014, Prigozhin co-founded the Wagner Group, even though private military companies are technically illegal in Russia. It came to play a central role in Putin’s projection of Russian influence in global trouble spots, first in Africa and then in Syria. His troops captured Bakhmut in what was likely the bloodiest and longest battle of the war. Prigozhin has said that 20,000 of his men died there, about half of them inmates recruited from Russia’s prisons.
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