Now the moment has come when blood can be shed. Therefore, realising all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one sid… - Yevgeny Prigozhin

About Yevgeny Prigozhin

Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin (Alternatively: Yevgeniy Vicktorovich Prigozhin, Russian: Евгений Викторович Пригожин; 1 June 1961 – 23 August 2023) was a Russian oligarch and former close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin was nicknamed "Putin's chef" because his restaurants and catering businesses hosted dinners which Putin attended with foreign dignitaries. Prigozhin controlled a network of companies including Wagner Group, a Russian state-backed mercenary group operating in Africa, Syria, and Ukraine; and three companies accused of interference in the 2016 and 2018 U.S. elections. Prigozhin long denied any connection to Wagner, however, a video in September 2022 showed Prigozhin in a Mari El prison recruiting inmates, promising them freedom if they served six months with the Wagner Group. On 26 September 2022, Prigozhin further admitted that he had founded the Wagner Group specifically to support Russian forces in the War in Donbas, in May 2014. Prigozhin also long denied his role in Russian interference in U.S. elections, but in November 2022, he admitted his role in such operations, saying they would continue. Prigozhin himself spent nine years as a convict in prisons in the Soviet Union. According to an investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, and Der Spiegel, Prigozhin's operations "are tightly integrated with Russia's Defence Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU". Prigozhin, his companies and associates face economic sanctions and criminal charges in the United States. In June 2023, he launched a short-lived rebellion against Russian Armed Forces, but a truce was agreed within 24 hours negotiated by President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and it was said Prigozhin would move to the country.

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