Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin

Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed 23 August 2023 in a private jet that crashed north of Moscow. Seven passengers and three crew were on board the Embraer aircraft, which was en route from Moscow to St Petersburg. The jet was said to have crashed in the Tver region, north of Moscow.

US President Joe Biden said that he was "not surprised" about the incident, and strongly hinted at Putin's involvement, according to media reports. Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukrainian presidential adviser, directly named Putin as being right behind the "demonstrative elimination" of Prigozhin, which is "a signal to Russia's elites ahead of the 2024 elections." The prime minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas, Polish foreign minister Zbigniew Rau, and chair of the UK Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee Alicia Kearns also suggested Russian president's involvement to "eliminate opponents."

Putin said, “I knew Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early ’90s. He was a man of complicated fate, and he made serious mistakes in his life, but he achieved the right results. He was a talented person, a talented businessman, he worked not only in our country, and worked with results, but also abroad, in Africa, in particular". The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said Putin “almost certainly” ordered Russia’s military command to shoot down the plane on which Prigozhin was reported to be travelling.

“This is about regime security for Vladimir Putin. You cannot allow a guy you called a traitor in late June, when he launched a mutiny, to live. That’s just not going to happen,” Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA operations officer who served as the agency’s Moscow station chief said.

“Prigozhin signed his own death warrant the moment he stopped 200km from Moscow,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyytold Germany’s Bild newspaper. Podolyak said that Prigozhin’s uprising in June and the incursion of his mercenary fighters into Russian territory “really frightened” Russian President Vladimir Putin. The uprising, predictably, led to consequences because “Putin doesn’t forgive anyone for making him afraid”, Podolyak told the newspaper.

Chinese experts said that based on public information and video materials so far, there was little chance that Prigozhin's death was just an accident. They added that continuous debate and recriminations are inevitable regardless of the final outcome of the Russian investigation, as Prigozhin's existence generally posed a kind of "threat" to all sides.

Zhao Long, deputy director of the Institute of Global Governance at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, told the Global Times that for the US, although the "Wagner rebellion" created chaos in Russia, the group's influence in Africa is an obstacle to the US' global strategic layout. Wagner's bloody campaign in Bakhmut and its deterrence also led NATO countries to identify Prigozhin as a threat.

Ukraine had called for Prigozhin to be held accountable over "war crimes", and his death coincides with Ukraine's warning of retaliation against Russia on Kiev's Independence Day, Zhao said. In addition, internal strife within Wagner and the conflict between Prigozhin and the Russian Defense Ministry may also have been factors and even motives leading to the "accident," Zhao said.

Reporting from Moscow, journalist Daniel Hawkins told Al Jazeera “Predominantly, the theory Russian media has been discussing, is some sort of explosion on board, possibly some sort of explosive devise in the chassis of the aircraft which broke off the aircraft’s wing. Another version .. is there was some sort of weapons – grenade explosives on board – which were not safely and securely stored that could have contributed to an explosion on board as well.” Hawkins stressed that these are “just speculations” and “theories being looked at” by the investigators who are also looking for “black boxes, the voice recordings, to piece together exactly what happened”.

Hawkins told Al Jazeera that while the reported death of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has created shock waves around the world, in Russian media, “it has hardly got a mention”. He said “The radio silence has been deafening... This morning the websites of most media on the events from last night haven’t been updated”. The United States believed a surface-to-air missile originating from inside Russia likely shot down the plane presumed to be carrying mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin on Wednesday, two US officials told Reuters. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter, stressed that the information was still preliminary and under review. The Kremlin-backed Wagner Group exploited insecurity to expand its presence in Africa, threatening stability, good governance, and respect for human rights. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” due to his catering contracts with the Kremlin, was a Russian oligarch and Wagner’s manager and financier. To all evidence, Prigozhin was the Proconsul of Russian Organized Crime in the Kremlin. The Russian Mob does not appear to have a single boss-of-all-bosses or even a governing Commission to whom Prigozhin might report, so some entrepreneurial coaltion-building on his part must be required to aggregate the Mob's message to Putin.

The matter of the foreign and security policy preferences of Russian Organized Crime was a poorly developed topic in the open literature. But surely such a sprawling enterprise must have some such policy concepts, just as the American branch of the Italian Mafia made common cause with the US government in the defeat of European fascism and the struggle against Soviet Communism on the home front in the United States. Judging from Prigozhin's increasingly public and vehement pronouncements in early 2023, the Russian Mob seemed take the view that Putin's policies were doubly misguided.

Ukraine was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time, but having embarked on this venture, a quick victory vigorously prosecuted was urgently necessary. While Putin need not be removed for the error of starting the war, new military leadership was required to end the war on terms favorable to Moscow. While these insights are obviously not unique to Russian hoodlums, in this case they probably have an urgency not generated by the chattering class in the Collective West.

Odessa had been a key node in a vast network of crime centered on Ukraine and Russia that reached from Afghanistan to the Andes. It was part of the “strongest criminal ecosystem in Europe”, reckons the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (gitoc), a think-tank. "The Russian invasion has inflicted a profound shock to this ecosystem. With the war, collaboration between Russian and Ukrainian organized crime interests became impossible due to the political situation".

Ukraine used the grain deal to smuggle drugs and oil through Odessa. This was stated 27 July 2023 by an American publicist, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh in an article on the Substack platform , citing a source in American intelligence. "Exports through Odessa included various illegal items, such as drugs and oil, which Ukraine received from Russia," the publicist quoted an intelligence source as saying.

Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin had serious blat. As is well known, Prigozhin was Putin's connection to a variety of nefarious enterprises, ranging from African gold mines to interference in American elections. Far less examined was the reciprocal connection, the channel by which the nefarious enterprises of Russian Organized Crime provide input to Putin's government. It was only natural that Prigozhin, a former criminal convicted of robbery and fraud in the 1980s, used his prison experiences to find new recruits for the war. Surely the combat service of these criminals was encouraged by Russian Organized Crime figures, who retained a vested interest in this enterprise.

Prigozhin's rebellion of 24 June 2023 and its aftermath encompass a growing string of peculiarities that defy conventional explanation. Why did his "March for Justice" halt within striking distance of Moscow? What "profitable and acceptable " deal was struck between Putin and Prigozhin? How was it that Prigozhin seemed to maintain freedom of movement thereafter? Why did he soon return to St.Petersburg, and with whom did he meet? And how were Prigozhin and other Wagner commanders present at a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin on 29 June 2023? Clearly there was some additional powerful factor ac work here, some hidden hand beyond that of the market place. Prigozhin's actions are not those of a satrap entirely in the thrall of his master, but rather and independent operator with a power base vastly more influential than his mercenary group and his troll farm.

On 29 December 2022, the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP), named Yevgeny Prigozhin " an oligarch who this year had become a living symbol of Russia's worst phenomena. Dirty money, primitive violence, cynicism and impunity even in the face of Russian law - all derivatives of state-approved corruption come together in his figure." The organization had been awarding the symbolic title "Corruption of the Year" since 2012. In 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin received it. In the past, in 2021, the ruler of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. In addition to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the "finalists" in the selection of applicants for the "title" in 2022 were the EU Court, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

While Prigozhin himself was not typically associated with organized crime in the traditional sense, he had been linked to a variety of activities that have raised concerns in international circles. Prigozhin denied allegations of wrongdoing and involvement in illicit activities. While his activities and close ties to the Russian state certainly draw scrutiny, it's important to differentiate between allegations of engagement in state-adjacent, extra-legal activities and involvement in organized crime per se.

The Russian political system had become interpenetrated with major organized crime networks. Russia’s political system was dominated by complex and corrupt personal networks that are often called the “power vertical.” Prigozhin’s background was very unlike that of Russian oligarchs. As a young man in Soviet Leningrad he was imprisoned for 9 years on various crime-related charges, during which time he surely developed connections which survived his release from confinement. Putin himself was widely reported to have had many business connections to St. Petersburg organized crime leaders. After Putin was elected president of Russia in 2000, he brought several foreign dignitaries to dine at one of Prigozhin’s restaurants.

Formal government institutions matter far less in Russia than do informal network connections between members of the elite, joined together in a loose, evolving, and internally fractious hierarchy. The system was based on patronage. Those at the top are expected to share opportunities for wealth and advancement with those further down, and those below are expected to demonstrate loyalty to those above them.

The word "blat" was a familiar word for all Soviet people who got the necessary things or services with the help of the almighty blat. Any person born in the Soviet Union will decipher the meaning of the concept of "blat" without hesitation: the necessary connections, thanks to which one can receive any benefits, bypassing generally accepted rules or laws.

Blat - (according to Vasmer - from Yiddish blat - “dedicated, consonant”; or Polish (thieves) blat - “bribe”, in turn from German die Blatt - “paper money”) - slang word , widespread in the territory of the former USSR, meaning acquaintance or connections used for personal purposes and infringing on the interests of third parties. In the USSR, ordinary people who went through the camps and returned home in the era of rehabilitation unwittingly brought a lot of slang expressions and words into everyday speech. In the years of stagnation, even in the language of the intelligentsia, blat replaced literary patronage.

There are several versions of the origin of this word, which was associated with both crime and the world of goods, accessible only to the elite thanks to the necessary acquaintances. The most common version of the appearance of the word "blat". Russian criminal language borrowed it from Polish criminal jargon, where blat meant a bribe or harboring. And in the Polish slang it came from Yiddish, the main language of the Ashkenazi Jews. There, this word first meant "secretly, quietly or secretly". In everyday life, the word "blat" was already recorded in the thirties - the journalist, prose writer and front-line correspondent Vadim Shefner recalls this in his memoirs. And in the dictionary of V. F. Trakhtenberg, it was first noted back in 1908.

The concept of "blat" came into use not during the Brezhnev stagnation, as many people think, it happened much earlier, during the food crisis of the forties. It was at that time that the popular saying among Soviet people “blat is stronger than the Council of People's Commissars” appeared. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, people rushed to sweep away everything left on the store and market counters. People bribed sellers and policemen, and sometimes staged forceful "breakthroughs" - 100-200 people gathered and rammed the doors of shops. The government responded with harsr measures. The people stopped gathering in monstrous queues and smashing the entrances to stores and ... began to extract everything by pull. Through relatives, acquaintances and friends of acquaintances.

Prigozhin was born 01 June 1961 in Leningrad. He graduated from the Leningrad Physical and Pharmaceutical Institute with a degree as a pharmacist. In 1979, the first clash with the law occurred in the biography of the businessman - Prigozhin received a suspended sentence due to theft. And after 2 years, in 1981, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Prigozhin was sentenced in 1981 to 13 years in a correctional labor colony with a high security regime under the articles "theft", "fraud", "involvement of a minor in criminal activity", "robbery". According to the court, he, along with accomplices, attacked a woman, tried to strangle her and stole gold earrings from the victim. In addition, Prigozhin repeatedly entered other people's apartments, where he stole property. Among other things, he and his accomplices in crime stole a tape recorder, a radio, two carpet runners, crystal, a car steering wheel braid, candles, a set of fountain pens, and bonds.

Prigozhin started doing business in 1990. From 1991 to 1997, he created a network of food stores, in 1995, he opened a bar-shop "Wine Club" on Vasilyevsky Island. In 1996, after meeting the restaurant manager Tony Gere (Anthony William Gere), he opened the Old Customs restaurant in the old customs building, which, under the management of Tony Gere, became the gastronomic center of St. Petersburg. Since 1997, he began to develop the catering direction of the company, in 1998, he opened a restaurant on the ship - New Island, then restaurants were opened in Moscow - the restaurant-ship River Palace and the Cheval Blanc restaurant. For some time, the restaurant "SPb" worked in the capital. In 2009, he opened a restaurant in the Government House of the Russian Federation.

Prigozhin began his career in big business from St. Petersburg casinos. He was the general director of CJSC Spektr, owned by Igor Gorbenko and Boris Spektor, the founders of the first Konti casino in St. Petersburg, together with the reputable businessman Mikhail Mirilashvili. Spektor and Gorbenko together founded the Unified Jackpot Gaming System. Together with them, Prigozhin also established Kontrast Consulting LLC, and all three were members of the board of directors of Viking CJSC.

Prigozhin's acquaintance with Vladimir Putin could be connected with the gambling business, since in 1991 Putin was appointed chairman of the Supervisory Board for Casinos and Gambling created under the mayor's office. The Council issued licenses for the right to engage in gambling activities. To control the gambling sector, a municipal structure was also created, which was supposed to receive stakes in St. Petersburg gambling establishments.

The Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Putin, and the KUGI established the Neva-Chance firm for this purpose. Gorbenko became the deputy director of the company, while at the same time remaining a shareholder of the Konti casino, an object of regulation. So there was no control. As Putin recalled, “all the money left the tables in black cash.”

From a restaurateur, Prigozhin gradually turned into a major businessman, but for this he had to pay compensation to his former partners. Mirilashvili demanded to give him the restaurant "Customs", in the end they agreed on "Seven Forty". Another partner, Ziminov, agreed to cede his share of the food chain to Prigozhin for a million dollars, but Prigozhin only paid him a portion. Putin often visited Prigozhin's restaurants New Island, Russian Fishing and Na Zdorovye together with high-ranking guests.

In January 2010, Concord received land from Smolny for a hotel center in the 300th anniversary park. The company planned to build a four-star hotel, restaurants and an entertainment complex here. In 2012, disagreements arose over the allocation of land to Concorde on Primorsky Prospekt for an entertainment center. The government considered that the company would use the territory for other purposes. Therefore, the government filed a complaint about the allocation of land, but it was denied.

In 2011, Concord became known for its project to provide schools in the metropolitan districts with ready-made meals. The Northern and South-Eastern districts of Moscow were satisfied with how the process improved. In addition to restaurant business and catering, Prigogine had another favorite hobby - provocations in the media. In 2013, several publications in Moscow and St. Petersburg were attacked by a campaign allegedly “for the purity of the press”. Provocations were organized against journalists to accuse them of publishing unreliable information. Prigozhin's service also organized bot attacks, infiltrated the ranks of political opponents and filmed propaganda films for the federal channel.

In 2012, Prigozhin's company won a competition to serve Putin's inauguration reception for a third term. At the end of 2012, JSC "Voentorg", established by the Ministry of Defense, began to prepare for liquidation, to transfer the assets for providing food to the military of Prigozhin's company Concorde. On the basis of former stores and warehouses, it was planned to create a grandiose retail company that could become larger than X5 or Magnit. The state could earn at least a billion dollars on this. At the same time, several small companies that also served food for soldiers began to be hindered in their activities. "Voentorg" underpaid them, the companies were forced to close and dismiss employees.

In 2016, Meduza published "Yevgeny Prigozhin's Right to Forget. What the restaurateur who served the presidents of Russia wants to hide about himself ” , which said that Prigozhin was convicted of “involving minors in prostitution”. After that, the businessman filed a lawsuit for the protection of honor to the publication. From copies of Prigozhin’s verdict, the publication’s staff found out that there was no mention of prostitution in the court decisions, and the reason for the widespread misconception about “Putin’s chef” was in the wording of the article on which he was judged.

Although Russian officials initially refused to accept links to the Wagner Group, the Russian government was aware of and used the Wagner Group and other Prigozhin-owned entities as proxies to disperse disinformation and carry out covert, armed operations abroad, including in Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. The United States, EU, and UK sanctioned Prigozhin, including by imposing sanctions targeting his network of malign influence in Africa.

Prigozhin was best known for financing the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a troll farm most often recognized for repeatedly attempting to interfere in U.S. elections, but also involved in and spreading disinformation worldwide, including in Africa. Prigozhin was wanted by the FBI for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission, the United States Department of Justice, and the United States Department of State. This occurred in Washington, D.C., from early 2014 to February 16, 2018. Prigozhin was the primary funder of the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA).

He allegedly oversaw and approved political and electoral interference operations in the United States which included the purchase of American computer server space, the creation of hundreds of fictitious online personas, and the use of stolen identities of persons from the United States. These actions were allegedly taken to reach significant numbers of Americans for the purposes of interfering with the United States political system, including the 2016 Presidential Election. On February 16, 2018, a federal arrest warrant was issued for Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia after he was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Prigozhin-led disinformation efforts extend beyond Mali and across parts of Africa in support of the Kremlin’s objectives or Prigozhin’s own interests. Through companies that exploit Africa’s natural resources, political operatives who undermine democratic actors, front companies posing as NGOs, and social media manipulation, Prigozhin spreads disinformation to influence African politics in Russia’s favor.

On the evening of 14 September 2022, a video appeared on Telegram channels in which a man who looks like businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin recruits prisoners to the Wagner PMC to participate in the Russian military operation in Ukraine. The press service of Prigozhin's company "Concorde" did not confirm or deny that it was he who was captured on the footage.

In the video, a man who looks like Prigozhin calls himself a “representative of Wagner PMC.” He tells the prisoners that those who join PMCs and take part in the fighting in Ukraine are prohibited from drugs and alcohol, as well as "looting, including sexual contact with local women, flora, fauna, men there, with anyone."

Prisoners could conclude a contract for six months, after which they receive a pardon, the man says, and those who try to desert are threatened with execution. “Do you have anyone who can pull you out of the zone with ten sentences? How do you think? There are two who pull out. This is Allah and God - in a wooden box. And I'm taking you alive. But I don’t always return alive,” he concludes.

The fact that prisoners were being recruited to be sent to the war zone in Ukraine was previously reported by the media and human rights activists, including Gulagu.net. Mediazona wrote in early August 2022 that the publication was contacted by prisoners from the Tula and Yaroslavl regions, who claimed that their colonies were visited by a short bald man in years with the star of the Hero of Russia on his chest, who offered to participate in battles in Ukraine in exchange for freedom and money. They claimed that it was Prigozhin.

In the Russian Telegram channels associated with the curator of the PMC "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigozhin, his "pumping" as a candidate for the presidency of Russia in the elections in 2024 began. So, apparently, an election banner was published, on which Prigozhin was depicted. The slogan reads: "You must shoot accurately. You must work honestly."

Prigozhin had said that Russia should get ready for a difficult war, introduce martial law and announce new waves of mobilization, as well as closing all borders, so that the country was not lost. We are now in a state where we could just screw Russia up. So we have to introduce martial law, we have to announce new waves of mobilization, we have to get everyone we can producing ammunition. We have to stop wasting money, stop building new roads and new infrastructure, and work only for the war. Russia needs to live like North Korea for a certain number of years, close all the borders, stop playing nice, bring all our kids back from abroad and work our asses off. Then we’ll see some results."

He said that while the children of the elite show off their carefree lives of luxury, "ordinary people’s children are coming back in zinc [coffins], torn to pieces" because of the so-called "special operation".

The Russian opposition publication Meduza, citing sources in the Presidential Administration of Russia, reported that the Kremlin perceived as a "serious threat" the new criticism of the curator of the PMC "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigozhin against the Russian Defense Ministry and statements of intention to leave Bakhmut. According to sources, Prigozhin crossed "red lines" with his statements, and "if it goes on like this, the official security forces will definitely stop it." The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, criticized Yevgeny Prigozhin for threatening to withdraw the Wagner PMC from Bakhmut and promised to "sort it out face to face."

The Z-environment (military bloggers, military correspondents and others) not only did not condemn Prigozhin, but, for the most part, warmly supported him. The "zradnaya" agenda was distributed in military telegram channels and was completely absent in the federal media. However, these channels have a very great influence in a specific target audience - among the Russian military, security officials, volunteers, as well as in that part of Russian society that actively supports the "special operation". In Russia, military telegram channels, Prigozhin, Girkin and other "angry patriots" systematically follow the line that "the internal enemy is no less dangerous than the external one."

From the point of view of the struggle for power, Prigozhin’s demarche against Bakhmut was not a “stab in the back against the warring Fatherland”, but a bright PR move that creates for him a dramatic image of a “patriot-fighter for justice, who was not allowed to fight by enemies who have settled in the Ministry of Defense.”

Prigozhin was married to Lyubov Valentinovna Prigozhina, a pharmacist and businesswoman. In 2003, Evgeny Prigozhin, together with his children Polina and Pasha, wrote a book of fairy tales 'Indraguzik', which describes the stories of the inhabitants of the fabulous country of Indraguzia, ruled by King Indraguz. He was awarded the Order "For Services to the Fatherland" I and II degrees, the Medal "In Commemoration of the 300th Anniversary of St. Petersburg", the Order of Recognition, for his personal contribution to the development of the Russian hospitality industry he was awarded the national award "Hospitality 2004".

Prigozhin mocked the fact that the FBI had placed him on their ‘wanted’ list on the internet with a reward of up to $250,000 for information leading to his arrest. On 26 November 2022, the head of the infamous private army responded to a media question about his attitude towards the news. He told them: “I feel very positive about this. Can you imagine how many ordinary people would be able to earn extra money? And I wouldn’t mind it either. The only thing that’s troubling was that they’ve been promising this money for three years, but it looks like they haven’t paid anyone”.