Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62, is a businessman and the founder of Wagner private mercenary group. He is one of the most visible faces of the Russian – Ukraine war, having founded the Wagner mercenary private military group in 2014, where he recruited
thousands of Russian prisoners to fight for the group.
Prigozhin, has for decades been known as “Putin’s chef” due to his company’s Kremlin catering contracts.His restaurant was known for fine food, which attracts dignitaries and Russian government functionaries like Putin. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin are both known to be born and raised in St Petersburg.
Yevgeny after serving a long prison sentence in the 1980s, started out selling hotdogs in his hometown. And later began to build up a stake in a chain of supermarkets, and eventually opened his own restaurant and catering company. From there his catering firm Concord began to win government supply contracts, taking its operations to it’s present level.
The Wagner Group has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and Mali, among other countries as mercenary militant group. The group have been the vanguard for the Russia-backed separatists who seized part of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in 2014. The group lead the forces that seized the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after some of the war’s most brutal fighting.
Prigozhin, one of the closest ally to Putin whose Wagner Group has spearheaded much of the fighting in Ukraine, on Friday launched his rebellion after alleging that the Russian military had killed some of his men in an air strike.
The visibly angry Putin well addressing Russian public accused the Wagner group headed by Prigozhin of “armed mutiny” and vowing to “neutralise” the uprising.
“the fate of our people is being decided, It’s an attempt to subvert us from inside. This is treason in the face of those who are fighting on the front,” he added.
Reacting to Putin’s outburst, Prigozhin said, “No one is going to turn themselves in at the request of the president, we don’t want the country to continue to live in corruption and lies,” he added. “We are patriots, and those who are against us are the ones who gathered around the bastards.”
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