The conflict in Ukraine has allowed the unpredictable leader of the paramilitary group Wagner to establish himself as a leading player in Russia.
• Also read: Key moments of the war in Ukraine
• Also read: In the Russian city of Rostov, Wagner deploys tanks and his armed rebels
• Also read: Putin “is deeply wrong,” says Wagner boss, who is accused of “treason.”
However, Yevgeny Prigoyine crossed the Rubicon with the call for the Russian army and population to rise up against the General Staff.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday strongly condemned Yevgeny Prigoyine’s “betrayal” which was “due to excessive ambition and personal interests” and pointed to the risk of “civil war”.
The boisterous billionaire with a shaved head and tough features claimed to have arrested the Russian army general “without a shot” in Rostov, the nerve center of operations in Ukraine, after he accused the Russian army of bombing his camps the day before Group.
AFP
Claiming that “25,000” fighters were “ready to die,” the 62-year-old mercenary leader called on the Russian army and people to join him while defending themselves against any “military coup.”
In response, Russia’s powerful security services have launched an investigation into him for “inciting armed mutiny,” a serious charge that could theoretically see him behind bars for a long time.
But nothing is certain when it comes to Mr. Prigojine, a former master in the art of provocation and backlash.
“We still need to understand what is happening,” notes independent Russian analyst Tatiana Stanovaya, for whom the authorities “may try to take Prigozhin out of the game, with his active participation.”
“It is clearly holy bread for the FSB and the staff. At least Prigojine will take a hit on the head,” she adds.
However, the conflict in Ukraine appeared to have been a golden opportunity for the businessman to emerge from the shadow in which he had operated for years and finally assert himself as a leading player in Russia.
In May 2023, after months of hard and bloody fighting, Mr. Prigojine achieved consecration by claiming Wagner’s capture of Bachmout (eastern Ukraine), thereby celebrating a rare battlefield victory for Russian forces.
However, tensions with the General Staff also increased during this battle: Mr. Prigoyine accused him of depriving Wagner of ammunition and multiplied the number of videos in which he insulted the Russian commanders.
Unthinkable for anyone else in Russia in the face of total repression.
His transition from shadow to light began in September when the Russian army suffered setback after setback in Ukraine, a humiliation for the warmongers of which he is a part.
At the head of the Wagner group
Then he bounces back by admitting for the first time that in 2014 he is in fact the founder of the Wagner paramilitary group, active in Ukraine as well as in Syria but also in Africa. And excels as a leader.
“These guys, heroes, defended the Syrian people, other peoples of Arab countries, poor Africans and Latin Americans, they became a pillar of our homeland,” he claims.
AFP
In October, he takes this advertising logic even further by setting up the headquarters of the “private military company Wagner” in a glass building in Saint Petersburg (northwest) with great fanfare.
A master of provocation, he released a video in February showing him aboard a fighter jet, where he proposed in an aerial duel to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to decide Bakhmout’s fate.
In order to arm himself with an army worthy of his ambitions, Mr. Prigoyine, a native of Saint Petersburg like Mr. Putin, is recruiting thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine in exchange for an amnesty.
AFP
Evguéni Prigojine knows the world of prison well, having been imprisoned for common law violations for nine years during the Soviet era.
golden business
He was released when the USSR collapsed in 1990 and started a successful business selling hot dogs.
He then switched to fine dining and opened a luxury restaurant that became one of the most popular in Saint Petersburg, where Vladimir Putin was simultaneously experiencing his own political rise.
After Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, his catering group operated in the Kremlin, earning him the nickname “Putin’s Chef” and a reputation for becoming a billionaire thanks to public contracts.
With that money he would therefore have founded Wagner, a private army originally composed of experienced veterans of the Russian army and special services.
While in 2018 there are suspicions that this group, which has already attracted attention in Ukraine, Syria and Libya, has gained a foothold in Africa, three Russian journalists investigating the affairs of the paramilitary company are killed in the Central African Republic.