Launched Coup Against Putin, Dead in Plane Crash: Who Is Yevgeny Prigozhin?

In a major challenge to Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin's mercenary forces, Wagner, launched a coup of sorts on Friday.

(Photo: Altered by Kamran Akhter/ The Quint)

(This story was first published on 25 June and is being brought back from The Quint's archives following the Wagner Group Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's death in a plane crash in Russia.)

Notorious warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, most recently in the news for launching a failed coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, crashed on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg on Wednesday, 23 August, according to Russian officials.

Russia's emergency ministry says that all 10 passengers of the plane, including three crew members, died in the crash, and added that a man with Prigozhin’s name was among the passengers.

Rosaviatsia, Russia's civil aviation regulatory body, confirmed that Prigozhin's name was on the passenger list, but it remains unclear whether he was actually on the flight, as reported by Reuters

“An investigation has been launched into the Embraer plane crash that occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the passenger list, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin."

Rosaviatsia

Following his coup in Russia, it is believed that the deal between the two camps was brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. But who is Yevgeny Prigozhin and what is the history of his mercenary group Wagner?

From Hot Dogs to Russia's Top Dog 

Sixty-two-year-old Prigozhin was born in St Petersburg – the city that is the hometown of Putin as well.

Prigozhin got in trouble with the law when he was a teenager and spent 12 years in prison for a 1981 conviction on charges of robbery, fraud and the prostitution of minors.

After his release, he started selling hot dogs in his hometown. However, over the years, he set up his own catering firm and became a private catering magnate. He was eventually noticed by Putin, and this connection helped him get catering contracts for the Russian military and state-run schools.

Since he also catered many a dinner hosted by the Russian president, it earned him the nickname 'Putin's chef.'

However, the ambitious entrepreneur didn't limit himself to food. Putin found him immensely useful as he was ready to do any dirty work on the president's behalf. The extent of Prigozhin's dealings on behalf of the Russian government became known only after details about Wagner started becoming public.

Prigozhin's Troll Farms to Undermine Western Democracies

Prigozhin founded the Internet Research Agency in 2013 with its headquarters in his hometown St Petersburg. The aim of this organisation was to run propaganda operations domestically and abroad.

The agency as well as Prigozhin along with 12 other Russian nationals were indicted by the United States Justice Department in 2018 for interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The indictment report called the IRA as the "hub of an ambitious effort to trick Americans online into following and promoting Russian-fed propaganda that pushed 2016 voters toward then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and away from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton," reported Washington Post in 2018.

Prigozhin had denied the allegations at that time. However, when a Bloomberg report accused him of interfering in last year's US midterm election, he admitted his role proudly.

“Gentlemen, we interfered. We are interfering and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.”

Further, the IRA has not limited itself to the US but other countries like Ukraine, the United Kingdom, South Africa and India have also been a target of its troll farms.

Wagnar's Multinational Operations

For a long time, Russian government and Prigozhin did not just distance themselves from Wagner, the private military company known for its ruthlessness and brutality, but also denied its existence.

Until the Ukraine war, which began in February 2022 and is ongoing, Prigozhin maintained a low profile.

However, since last year he has suddenly become quite vocal and social media savvy. In September 2022, he posted on social network VKontakte that he founded Wagner in 2014.

“I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this. From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later came to be called the Wagner Battalion.” 

Wagner takes its name from the 19th-century German musician Richard Wagner, a favourite of Adolf Hitler and whose legacy was appropriated by the Nazis.

Wagner was a call sign used by one of the group's early commanders who had a fascination for the Nazi Germany.

The presence of the group was first noticed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when the Wagner recruits, masked and wearing unmarked green army uniforms, were seen fighting in the eastern Donbas region. They were referred to as 'little green men' for their uniforms and mysterious identity.

Since then the Wagner forces have been reported in Syria, Libya, Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Mozambique and Venezuela.

Experts say that the Russian government has used Wagner forces for its foreign operations due to the "plausible deniability" that it affords the Kremlin. Interestingly, mercenary groups are illegal under the Russian law.

Role in Ukraine War

Last year summer, Prigozhin recruited thousands of convicts from Russia's prisons to bump the number of mercenaries who could fight the war in Ukraine. The convicted were promised liberation after six months' service in Ukraine.

The Wagner forces are said to have played an important role in taking the city of Bakhmut from the Ukrainian forces.

In a video message on Telegram last month, Prizoghin had said,

“Today on May 20, around midday, Bakhmut was taken in its entirety. By May 25 we will completely examine [Bakhmut], create the necessary lines of defence and hand it to the military.”

However, along with Russian forces, Wagner mercenaries too have faced heavy casualties. Prigozhin himself has admitted that 10,000, or one-fifth of the prisoners recruited by him, have been killed on the battlefield. According to one expert, 80% of Russian prisoners recruited by Wagner had been either killed, injured, or captured by Ukraine by January 2023.

The Mutiny Against Putin

In a major challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin's authority in decades, Yevgeny Prigozhin's mercenary forces, Wagner, launched a coup of sorts on 23 June, taking control of the city of Rostov-on-Don and marching towards Moscow.

Through a series of audio and video posts on social media into the night, Prigozhin proclaimed that his forces were moving towards the Russian capital on a 'March of Justice'.

However, before the mercenary group could reach Moscow, Prigozhin said that he had halted the march and asked the Wagner personnel to return to the 'field camps.'

When the freebooters were still on their way to the capital, Putin addressed to the nation saying:

"We won't allow a civil war to be repeated. We will protect our people and our statehood from any threats, including betrayal from the inside. What we are facing now is betrayal. Exorbitant ambitions and personal interests have led to treason, state treason and betrayal of own people, and the common cause which our units and brigades fought and died for alongside Wagner fighters and commanders."

The reason for the Wagner rebellion was said to be Prigozhin's anger towards the Russian military leadership and the changed prospects of the mercenary group. In the lead-up to the armed insurrection, Prigozhin had called Russia's military leaders incompetent and had accused that his forces were not getting the ammunition needed.