Wagner warlord Prigozhin's worst crimes as Putin in frame for fatal plane crash
Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin is believed dead after his plane crashed to the ground in a burning wreck.
Ten people - including Wagner fighters and deputy Dmitry Utkin - are said to be among those who perished. Prigozhin grew to prominence as a trusted ally of Putin, but after a failed coup and almost daily berating of Russia's military in the Ukraine war, he earned a spot on the president's 'kill list'.
Putin is believed to be behind the doomed aircraft, with speculation surrounding how it came to fall from the sky. Some believe bombs were stowed in wine crate crammed on board, while others say it's more likely the aircraft was shot down by missiles.
A former hotdog vendor, Prigozhin, 62, climbed the ranks of the Russian military with a past littered with crime and bloodshed. His mercenaries have become a major force in the war and are known as one of the most vicious forces, fighting as counterparts to the Russian army in battles with Ukrainian forces.
That includes Wagner fighters taking Bakhmut, the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place. By last month, Wagner Group and Russian forces appeared to have largely won Bakhmut, a victory with strategically slight importance for Russia despite the cost in lives.
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Here, we take a look at Prigozhin's dark past as the world awaits confirmation he has died in the doomed jet crash.
Young Prigozhin's crimes
Prigozhin's past is littered with crime (TELEGRAM/ @concordgroup_official)Prigozhin was born in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, and experienced a troubled childhood after losing his father at a young age. In 1979, the then 18-year-old was caught stealing and handed a suspended sentence of two years and six months in prison.
He served his sentence working at a chemical plant in Veliky Novgorod. But by 1980, he back on the streets of Leningrad and had been recruited into a gang. It was here he took part in a burglary spree and eventually caught after choking a woman on the street in one such robbery.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1981 at a high-security colony for robbery, theft, fraud and involving minors in crime. Despite being put in solitary confinement, Prigozhin has admitted he would regularly violate the terms of this until he was allowed back into the general population in 1985.
He began to "read intensively" and worked as a lathe operator, tractor driver and cabinet maker. In 1988, the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union reduced his sentence to ten years on good behavior, noting that he had begun "corrective behavior".[37][28] He was sent to a medium-security penal colony and was released in 1990.
Rise to Putin's 'chef'
Yevgeny Prigozhin, right, with Vladimir Putin back in 2010 (SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)Following his prison release, Prigozhin began selling hot dogs with his mum and stepdad at the Apraksin Dvor open-air market in Leningrad. He told the New York Times in an interview that soon "the rubles were piling up faster than his mother could count them".
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Prigozhin latched onto any opportunity and became involved in many businesses - from grocery stores to gambling. It's believed that throughout his various business ventures, he met Vladimir Putin for the first time.
Over the course of the 2000s, Prigozhin grew closer to Vladimir Putin. By 2003, he left his business partners and established his own independent restaurants. Notably, one of Prigozhin's companies, Concord Catering, began winning numerous government contracts - eventually earning the nickname Putin's 'chef'.
Such was his wealth that he moved his family to Saint Petersburg in 2012 to a luxury compound complete with a basketball court and helicopter pad. He also owned a private jet and 115 foot yacht, as well as being linked to several high powered aircraft. The Anti-Corruption Foundation accused Prigozhin of corrupt business practices.
In 2017, they estimated his illegal wealth to be worth more than one billion rubles. Alexei Navalny alleged that Prigozhin was linked to a company called Moskovsky Shkolnik (Moscow Schoolboy) that had supplied poor-quality food to Moscow schools, which had caused a 2019 dysentery outbreak. Prigozhin was declared the 2022 Corrupt Person of the Year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
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US sanctions
The US treasury department has sanctioned Prigozhin and associates repeatedly (AP)Prigozhin had gained more limited attention in the US, when he and a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies were charged with operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord ahead of Donald Trump's 2016 election victory.
They were indicted as part of US special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference. The US treasury department has sanctioned Prigozhin and associates repeatedly in connection with both his alleged election interference and his leadership of the Wagner Group.
After the 2018 indictment, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Mr Prigozhin as saying: "Americans are very impressionable people; they see what they want to see. I treat them with great respect. I'm not at all upset that I'm on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him."
The Biden White House called him "a known bad actor", and US state department spokesman Ned Price said Mr Prigozhin's "bold confession, if anything, appears to be just a manifestation of the impunity that crooks and cronies enjoy under President Putin and the Kremlin".
Wagner Group
Putin used the Wagner Group - a mercenary fighting force set up by Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin - as a key component in his projection of Russia's influence. The United States, European Union, United Nations and others say the mercenary force has involved itself in conflicts in countries across Africa in particular.
Wagner fighters allegedly provide security for national leaders or warlords in exchange for lucrative payments, often including a share of gold or other natural resources. US officials say Russia may also be using Wagner's work in Africa to support its war in Ukraine.
The Wagner Group has also played a significant role prior to and during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Prigozhin travelled to the Donbas to personally oversee the group's progress.
He confirmed allegations, previously denied by the Russian government, that the group had been involved in other countries aligned with Russian overseas interests, stating that the Wagner mercenaries who "defended the Syrian people, other people of Arab countries, destitute Africans and Latin Americans have become the pillars of our motherland".
On November 13, 2022, Wagner Group released a video depicting its mercenaries using a sledgehammer to execute Yevgeny Nuzhin, a deserter who had reportedly been returned to the Russians in a prisoner exchange. He said: "It seems to me that this film should be called: 'A dog dies a dog's death'."
Ukraine bloodshed
The warlord has been leading troops on the frontlines in Ukraine (TELEGRAM / @ razgruzka_vagnera/A)During the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin's mercenaries are on the frontlines and were key in the taking of Bakhmut, the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place. By last month, Wagner Group and Russian forces appeared to have largely won Bakhmut, a victory with strategically slight importance for Russia despite the cost in lives.
The US estimates that nearly half of the 20,000 Russian troops killed in Ukraine since December were Wagner fighters in Bakhmut. The soldiers-for-hire included inmates recruited from Russia's prisons. As his forces fought and died en masse in Ukraine, Mr Prigozhin raged against Russia's military top brass.
In a video released by his team, Mr Prigozhin stood next to rows of bodies he said were those of Wagner fighters. He accused Russia's regular military of incompetence and of starving his troops of the weapons and ammunition they need to fight.
"These are someone's fathers and someone's sons," Prigozhin said at the time. "The scum that doesn't give us ammunition will eat their guts in hell."
Running for president
The warlord announced plans to run for president of Ukraine in 2024. He revealed in a video post on Telegram that he had "political ambitions".
He said: "I'm making a political coming out. Looking at everything around me, I've got political ambitions. I decided to run for president in 2024. For President of Ukraine." "If I win the presidential elections of Ukraine, then everything will be fine, guys, the shells will not be needed," he added.
When asked to explain his prior complaints about the Kremlin's defence ministry failing to supply him weapons, he claimed he buys everything with his own cash. Previously, he claimed his militia required about $1billion-worth (£831million) of ammunition each month to fight the war in Ukraine. He added: "Fighters die at war in any case, the war is so invented that one army kills another."
Leading armed rebellion
Prigozhin led the Wagner rebellion in June (Social media/east2west news)Perhaps his most damning crime in the eyes of Putin, Prigozhin's criticism of the Russian government burst into full blown rebellion in June when he led thousands of troops on a march towards Moscow.
However, it was short-lived and he soon ordered his fighters back to the frontlines and was eventually exiled by Putin to Belarus. But many believed this seeming pardon would not last, with rumours his card was now marked.
Prigozhin has since kept a low profile and put extensive security in place. News of his rumoured death has not come as a surprise to many experts.
Mark Galeotti of University College, London, who specialises in Russian security affairs, said of Mr Prigozhin on his podcast In Moscow's Shadows: "He's not one of Putin's close figures or a confidant. Prigozhin does what the Kremlin wants, and does very well for himself in the process. But that's the thing - he is part of the staff, rather than part of the family."
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