Personal diary, invoices, investments… Paris Match, in collaboration with Arte and Capa, had access to numerous documents proving the close and long-standing ties between Wagner’s founder and the Kremlin.
By Jeanne Senechal
Published 2/25/2023 at 6:26 PM, updated 2/25/2023 at 6:27 PM
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Yevgeny Prigoyine in Moscow in 2016 Mikhail Metzel/TASS/ABACAPRESS.COM
The links are irrefutable. In an investigation published on February 23 in Paris Match magazine in collaboration with Arte and Capa, journalists Alexandra Jousset and Ksenia Bolchakova reveal the acquaintances between Evguéni Prigojine, one of the founders of the paramilitary company Wagner, which remained in the shadows for a long time. , and the Russian government. Relationships are not only real, they are also ancient.
Thanks to thousands of documents sent to them by hackers, the two journalists, awarded an Albert London Prize for their Wagner work, documented the many actions of Evguéni Prigojine, nicknamed “Putin’s cook”, in the service of the Kremlin: meddling, troll farms, Spinning mills, abuses… But also the financial networks of the ex-convict.
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intimacy with the Kremlin
From 2012 to 2021, journalists primarily had access to Prigojine’s diary. It records 37 visits to the Kremlin and six meetings with Vladimir Putin. As Paris Match recalls, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said during a press conference in 2020 that he did not know the paramilitary company: “What is Wagner? There is no private military company in Russia, it is illegal”. However, Prigogine’s diary testifies to the contrary: the two men met no less than 62 times.
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The ties between the Russian government and the Wagner paramilitary company since its inception are also very real. This is documented by an armaments list from the Russian Ministry of Defense for the years 2014 to 2015. In particular, we see several rocket launchers and light tanks. But above all: A letter from the Russian Ministry of Defense from 2016 raises the question “after the dissolution of the Wagner Group”. With all this written evidence, it is difficult for the Russian government to maintain its original version.
troll farms
In addition to these not insignificant connections, other documents prove the interventions of the craftsmen of the Kremlin’s basic works. In particular, excerpts from Prigogine’s reports, where we can see that the latter invested to favor the party of one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saif al-Islamet, but also the camp of his opponent, Marshal Haftar. “Troll farms” are also mentioned, such as by the “Magadan Project”: it is proven that seven operatives in Mexico fomented online disinformation in anticipation of the American elections.
Once again, Prigogine did not hide it. On the eve of the midterms, the man announced: “We got involved, we’re going to do it and we’ll keep doing it.” For this, he does not hesitate to name the price: he spent 1,676,970 euros for the month of December 2019 alone to finance his disinformation campaign and his influence.
acts of torture
The organization and acts of torture by the paramilitary company are also mentioned in the investigation. Wagner has been active on several continents since 2014. In Donbass, Syria, Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya and Mali after the Barkhane withdrawal. And along the way, they leave terrible grievances in their wake: “It’s their modus operandi,” commented Alexandra Jousset on BFMTV last year.
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We see screenshots showing the execution of a man with a club, his head taped to a block of stone. For his wishes for 2023, Prigojine releases a mace engraved with “Happy New Year 2023”. The tool then became the emblem of his barbarism.
Today, the man in the shadows is waging a battle against the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Defense. On Tuesday, February 21, he accused the Russian General Staff of committing “treason” by refusing to provide equipment to his mercenaries on the front lines in eastern Ukraine.