His father died when he was young his mother worked in a hospital, Prigozhin has said. Yevgeny Prigozhin was born in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, in 1961, nine years after Putin. The US announced on 3 March 2022 it was imposing sanctions against Russians including Yevgeniy Prigozhin (seen in an FBI poster) as it targeted Russia’s super-rich and others close to Putin. “He’s driven and talented, and won’t shrink from anything to get what he wants,” said a businessman who knew Prigozhin in the 1990s. From these conversations, a picture emerges of a ruthless schemer who was obsequious to social superiors and often tyrannical to underlings as he rose to the top. The Guardian has spoken with numerous people who have known Prigozhin over the years, many of whom requested anonymity to speak freely, to piece together his story. It has been an extraordinary ascent for someone who once spent nearly a decade in prison, and who became a hotdog salesman on his release. But after years operating in the shadows, he is clearly relishing the spotlight as one of the most powerful – and most talked about – members of Putin’s court. Prigozhin did not respond to a request for comment for this article. “A dog’s death for a dog,” Prigozhin said in a statement at the time. He appeared to tacitly endorse a video showing the murder, with a sledgehammer, of a Wagner defector who had apparently been handed back by the Ukrainians in a prisoner exchange. Prigozhin has earned a reputation as the cruellest commander among those leading Russia’s grim invasion. Its ranks have ballooned to about 50,000, according to western intelligence estimates, including tens of thousands of ex-prisoners recruited from jails around Russia, often personally by Prigozhin.Įarlier this month, as Prigozhin’s troops captured the Ukrainian town of Soledar, Moscow’s first territorial gain in the war since the summer, Prigozhin released a video lauding Wagner as “probably the most experienced army in the world today”. Since Putin’s decision last year to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Wagner has refocused its activities on Russia’s neighbour again. Visitors gather outside PMC Wagner Centre, a project implemented by Yevgeny Prigozhin, during the official opening of the office block in St Petersburg on 4 November 2022. Prigozhin’s army of contract fighters would come to be known as the Wagner group, and would see action in Ukraine, Syria and numerous African countries. In fact, the decisions taken that day would have an enormous impact on Russia’s foreign policy and its military adventures in the years to come. “At the time, I didn’t think much of the project,” said the former official. This account of the meeting, which has not previously been reported, was provided by a former high-ranking defence ministry official with direct knowledge of the discussions. “The orders come from Papa,” he told the defence officials, using a nickname for Vladimir Putin designed to emphasise his closeness to the president. Many in the ministry did not like Prigozhin’s manner, but he made it clear that this was no ordinary request. He wanted land from the defence ministry that he could use for the training of “volunteers” who would have no official links to the Russian army but could still be used to fight Russia’s wars. Now, Prigozhin had a different kind of demand.
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