On Friday, word got out that Prigozhin’s Patriot Media Group was breaking up. The company operated ten news sites, all of which stopped posting within hours. More recently, the group’s flagship Ria Fan has also not been updated. The sites were notorious for unilaterally reflecting the Kremlin’s line of government. The social network YaRus, a mixture of Instagram and TikTok, ended its activities.
Three “troll factories” attributed to Prigozhin were also shut down, most notably the “Internet Research Agency” he says he founded. Thousands of employees spread propaganda and false reports on social media for years. The “troll factory” also had a significant impact on the 2016 US presidential campaign to promote eventual winning candidate Donald Trump and vilify opponent Hillary Clinton.
Resolution or displacement?
The head of the “troll factory” and at the same time director of Ria Fan, Yevgeny Zubarev, said in a video message distributed on the Telegram channels of the media company that the Patriot Media Group, founded in 2009, is closing its activities. He confirmed the propaganda claims by defending them “It was important to discredit the opposition journalists. They tried to destroy the country.”
riafan.ru The Ria Fan website is no longer updated
It is unclear whether Prigozhin’s media group will actually be disbanded or whether new owners loyal to the regime will be found. Russian exiled psychic The Bell reports that the companies could be incorporated into the media empire of billionaire and Putin confidant Yuri Kovalchuk.
lucrative catering
It remains unclear what will happen to Prigozhin’s Concord Group, a hugely profitable network of a wide variety of companies. This includes Concord Catering, which, according to media reports, was the largest catering company in all of Eastern Europe for a time. Prigozhin gained fame as a restaurateur and was considered “Putin’s chef” because he took care of physical well-being at state banquets.
Portal/Misha Japaridze Yevgeny Prigozhin entertaining Vladimir Putin
His catering company not only provided nursing homes and kindergartens, but also had a contract to equip the Russian army. For this alone, the company received 80 billion rubles from May 2022 to May 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his speech on Thursday. For comparison: according to Putin, Prigozhin’s Wagner group received 86 billion rubles in salaries and bonuses over the same period – just a little more.
The Concord Group also includes the company Megaline, which takes on construction contracts for the Russian military. The empire also includes real estate development, construction, and transportation companies.
Corporate network in Africa
In connection with the Wagner Group’s military involvement in Africa, accusations were repeatedly made that the mercenary troop would use the countries’ mineral resources. There are also companies created for this in the Prigozhin Empire. How the Wagner troupe will continue in Africa is completely open to question. According to Russian information, the mercenaries will remain active in Africa if the governments of the respective countries decide to continue contracts with the mercenaries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.
AP/French Wagner military mercenaries in Mali
mother as head of the company
From Moscow, however, it was said that Concord’s business would be investigated. There is speculation as to whether the catering company should be “acquired” first. Apparently, a company linked to the current leadership of the Ministry of Defense of Russia is under discussion. It is not clear how many scruples the Russian leadership has in handling Prigozhin’s assets.
From a purely formal point of view, Prigozhin has little to do with the Concord Group: his mother, Violetta Prigozchina, has been at the helm since 2011. In general, ownership is evenly split within the family: his wife Lyubov Prigozchina owns several well-known hotels. living, his three sons also own a few hotels and other luxury properties, reports the exiled Russian news site Meduza.
The Wagner field in Belarus will be bigger than expected
Meanwhile, according to US experts, the Wagner mercenary group is building three military camps in Belarus, an ally of Moscow, after its failed uprising in Russia. “New high-resolution satellite images taken on June 30 show at least 303 tents capable of accommodating 20 to 50 people in a former military base in Belarus,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), with headquarters in Washington, in your daily status. report.
AP/Planet Labs PBC satellite images, AP/Planet Labs PBC show the construction of the Wagner camp in Belarus
The tents appeared near the town of Assipowitschy last week. Until now, it had been said that 8,000 men could be accommodated at the base. But now it can be almost twice as much. There are also reports of plans for two more fields in western Belarus.