Global Courant
The head of the Wagner group Yevgeny Prigozhin left the headquarters of the Southern Military District on June 24, 2023 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
Stringer | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Yevgeny Prigozhin used his close ties to the Russian president Vladimir Putin to get rich and build a private army – then marched to Moscow in a wonderful challenge to the rule of his former boss.
The head of Wagner’s mercenary group now appears to have given up that rebellion for exile in Belarus, in a deal that leaves more questions than answers.
“Prigozhin would be naive to think this is over,” Michael A. Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst who is the chief of intelligence at consulting firm Le Beck, told NBC News.
Here’s a look at the man behind Russia’s biggest uprising in its post-Soviet history, who went from prison to leading a military uprising that spread as far as a hundred miles from Moscow.
Who knows what’s next.
How did Prigozhin build Wagner?
Born in St. Petersburg like Putin, 62-year-old Prigozhin has one of the most varied biographies among the Kremlin’s elite.
He has admitted to serving 10 years in prison as a young man, although he has not said what for. He then built a hot dog stand into a chain of upscale restaurants, eventually catching the attention of the Russian president and earning lucrative contracts to cater public school and Kremlin events, earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef.”
Over time, Prigohzin has served a variety of Putin’s other needs.
The Russian leader has sought to exert influence around the world – from his neighbors in Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Africa – and Prigozhin has helped him do so.
Around 2014, he created Wagner, according to a member recruited into the mercenary group by Prigozhin in the early days.
The Kremlin had just taken Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and had set its sights on the eastern Donbas region, where conflict was looming after mass protests in Kiev toppled a pro-Russian government. Suddenly Putin had a war on his hands, but he didn’t want to send regular army troops or call for conscription and face the possibility of Russians coming home in body bags.
So Prigozhin provided a solution.
He created a group of undesirables, those with military experience or a history of violence who were looking for work and less likely to be missed if killed. Wagner’s early operations in Ukraine were somewhat successful, and the conflict there continued unopposed by the Russian public.
The Kremlin has always denied any official military presence in eastern Ukraine, and while Prigozhin had previously refuted suggestions he had ties to Wagner, he admitted on social media last year that he founded the group in 2014 and participated in the conflict . in eastern Ukraine.
Prigohzin’s next mission received much more attention, especially from the US
He founded the Internet Research Agency, the bot farm that interfered in the 2016 US presidential election, polluting social media with disinformation, lies and skepticism about the legitimacy of the election process. Whether it influenced the outcome of the election remains an open question, but the US intelligence community called it out and sanctioned Prigozhinwho said that last year he had interfered in American elections and would continue to do so.
Then came the Russian intervention in the war in Syria. Putin wanted to support president Bashar al-Assad and fight rebels backed by the West, but again, do it off the books with few official Russian casualties. There, Wagner again played a major role in his efforts, and his fighters remain grounded in the Middle Eastern country many years later.
Ever the entrepreneur, Prigozhin expanded his business to Africa as well.
In the Central-African RepublicPrigohzin found that if Wagner supported the weak government and helped it fight a rebellion, the group could help itself with the resources of the impoverished country, mainly gold and blood diamonds.
Now the man who started his life over with a single hot dog stand had an army that had been tested, experienced in disinformation, and perhaps most importantly, had his own independent source of funding.
From Bakhmut to Moscow: what led to the uprising?
With the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Prigozhin was able and eager to once again prove his worth to Putin.
While the Russian army met surprisingly strong resistance, Wagner’s mercenaries came in handy in the bloodiest of battles. To strengthen their ranks, Prigozhin turned to a place he knew wellpromising freedom to convicts in Russian prisons if they could survive more than six months at the front.
Wagner led the fighting for several important Ukrainian cities, including Bakhmutan eastern city that became an important symbolic prize for Putin when he claimed to have seized last month at the cost of thousands of men.
While touting his mercenaries as game changers in Ukraine and gradually moving into the public spotlight, Prigozhin increasingly clashed with the Moscow military establishment.
Using his well-oiled social media machine, Prigozhin emerged as a leading voice for hardliners and influential pro-war figures critical of the Kremlin’s approach to the war.
He accused the Defense Ministry and its chief, Sergei Shoigu, of downplaying Wagner’s role and failing to supply his fighters. with enough ammunitionwhile blaming “incompetent” military leadership for Russia’s failure in Ukraine.
The bitter feud escalated in recent weeks when Moscow gave all private mercenaries until July 1 to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry, which Prigozhin refused.
The standoff then exploded and Prigozhin launched an armed uprising on Friday after claiming that the Russian army had fired on his mercenaries.
While Putin initially seemed happy to let the internal squabbles play out, it seems that even the Russian leader underestimated how powerful and daring Prigohzin had become.
“I think the order issued earlier this month prompted his decision to launch a frenzied attack on Moscow,” Horowitz said, referring to requiring his fighters to sign Defense Department contracts. . Prigozhin saw this as a “prelude to dissolution” of the private army he had worked on for years, Horowitz said.
This was a signal to the mercenary chief that “Putin had sided with his enemies,” he said, adding that Prigozhin “may feel that his own safety was no longer guaranteed in the long run, and that if he did not act , he would end up sidelined (at best) or dead. He had nothing to lose.”
Prior to the uprising, U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered information that Prigozhin was planning to challenge Russia’s senior military leaders and last week briefed Congressional leaders on the matter, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. They added that the intelligence showed that Wagner had amassed troops and weapons, although the intelligence was not definitive.
What now?
In the end, it is unclear what Prigozhin won.
He said on Saturday he was within 200 kilometers of the Russian capital but decided to turn his troops around to “prevent the shedding of Russian blood”.
The Kremlin said Prigozhin would face no charges and go to Belarus, whose leader, Alexander Lukashenko, apparently helped seal the deal.
A big question that lingers is what will happen to his Wagner troops?
The Kremlin has said it will not prosecute fighters who took part in the uprising, and that Wagner troops can still sign contracts with the Defense Ministry if they wish.
It is possible that the estimated 25,000 Wagner fighters will be scattered “under suspicion” among Russia’s regular army, said Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commander of the US military in Europe.
As for Prigozhin himself, the true nature of the solution to the crisis remains unknown, as does the future of the Wagner chief.
But Putin is not known for allowing his enemies to live peacefully in exile, and his description of Prigozhin as a traitor suggests that, like many analysts, he viewed the uprising as a direct threat to his rule.
“Going to Belarus might be an option – he seems to know and trust Lukashenko very well – but he would still be in danger there,” Horowitz said. My best guess is that he will continue to operate in Ukraine, rather than Belarus, where he can justify the maintenance of relative freedom among men loyal to him.
“But either way, he’s cornered himself by going too far or not going far enough,” Horowitz said. “If he keeps a low profile, he may still drink poisoned tea, and if he is too loud, he will become even more of a liability for Moscow.”
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