Yevgeny Prigozhin, from “Putin’s cook” to the head of Wagner’s mercenaries and ex-convicts

by time news

cannot understand the existence of Wagner mercenary group sin Yevgeny Prigozhintheir leader, in the same way that you cannot understand fame or influence Yevgeny Prigozhin without his group of mercenaries. For years, the also known as “Putin’s cook” denounced all those who in one way or another related him to Wagner and it was not until 2022 that he publicly accepted that it existed and that he had a essential part in its creation..

But it rose to fame two decades ago, in the 2000s, when its restaurants were in charge of usual catering of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. At that time he earned the nickname “Putin’s cook”. So he had already been in the restaurant sector for some time, to which he ended up after having passed years in jail for crimes such as robberies or home assaults during the last years of the Soviet Union.

Concord Catering, one of his companies, became a regular for Russian government contracts in the new millennium. This would have guaranteed trust of russian leaders, in addition to a huge amount of money. He Anti-Corruption Fund of the Russian opponent Aleksé Navalni – an entity branded as a foreign agent by the Russian Government – ​​estimated that Prigozhin has a patrimony of more than 1,000 million euros.

Another of his past achievements was the creation of “troll farms“, the most prominent of which is the Internet Research Agency (IRA). These are organized groups of people who seek spread propaganda and attack critics, usually to influence public opinion. Far from denying their link, last February proudly wore who was one of the creators of this organization. “I was never just the capitalist partner of the IRA. I invented it, created it and directed it for a long time“, he assured on his Telegram channel, his favorite way of communicating with the world. He pointed out that, according to him, “it was created for protect the Russian information space of the West’s aggressive anti-Russian propaganda.” Some reports also link him to another page dedicated to spreading ‘fake news’ known as Peace Data -pronounced the same as a bad-sounding word in Russian – although so far he has not made any statement on the matter.

The ‘Wagnerites’ and their interests

However, his greatest contribution to the Russian cause is the creation of the Wagner group, which takes its name from one of the favorite composers of the German dictator Adolf Hitler. This was created in 2014, according to Prigozhin himself. “I cleaned the old weapons myself, found the bulletproof vests and started to join experts could you help me with this. From that moment, the May 1, 2014a group of patriots had been born, which would later be called the Wagner group”, he himself expressed in September of last year, when he finally publicly accepted what was already The voice of the people in Russia.

When it became public that Wagner was recruiting in the prisons in Russia, one of the videos that circulated through social networks and Telegram channels is one in which he supposedly went to offer freedom to prisoners in exchange for fighting for a few months in the Ukraine. he promised them be free at the end of the corresponding months and a salary above the average in Russia, although he warned them that the conflict was tougher that the one in Afghanistan and that anyone who deserted would take a bullet in the back.

sharp tongue

“Putin’s cook” has his knives ready for any occasion, as demonstrated by the multiple criticisms that he has poured against him Ministry of Defense of Russia in public, especially through his Telegram channel. He accuses him of insufficiently arming them and not knowing how to manage the front. These words may seem trivial, but they break one of the unwritten laws of putinism: avoid the direct and public criticism against other members of the elite that governs the Eurasian country.

However, the reproaches towards him or his men do not suit him at all and for this reason he asked the president of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, to do something about it, so that the possibility of criminally punishing critics against all those who fight on the Russian side on the Ukrainian front be considered, something that would include Wagner. The last reading of this law will take place on March 14 and will further armor Prigozhin and his men from public scrutiny by avoiding being “discredited” – accused of crimes in Ukraine – in the media.

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