Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tours the new factory Concord, which supplies pre-prepared meals to schools with Yevgeny Prigozhin. September 20, 2010.
As the war in Ukraine has raged on, Americans have often heard the name Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin, also known as “Putin’s Chef,” leads the Wagner Group private military contractor, and has a long history in Russia. Charles Maynes explains on NPR, writing:
In a gritty industrial district of St. Petersburg, a 23-story glass office tower rises — the words “Wagner Center” emblazoned across its rooftop and entrance.
“Mostly we are interested in those who are patriotic,” explains Anastasia Vasilevskaya, a spokesperson, during a tour of the space — still under renovation.
There will be a free 24-hour media lab, and snacks, for patriotic bloggers, she explains. Also, seed money to incubate Russian tech startups with potential military applications. On the upper floors, luxury board rooms with a sweeping view.
It’s a symbol of Wagner’s growing business empire and, perhaps, the rising political fortunes of its once-secretive owner.
For after years of operating in the shadows, Wagner’s founder — 61-year-old Yevgeny Prigozhin — now very much wants to be seen.
The man known as “Putin’s Chef” is taking new orders
Americans may know Prigozhin as the mastermind behind Russian troll farms during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
But inside Russia, Proghzin’s notoriety is tied primarily to the Wagner Group — a private military contractor linked to various Kremlin covert operations over the past decade but now openly central to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
Prigozhin has led efforts to recruit thousands of imprisoned Russian convicts to go fight in Wagner units deployed to Ukraine. The contract on offer: Survive six months and receive a full amnesty. Die in battle and get a hero’s burial.
“Both God and Allah can take you out of here in a casket,” says Prigozhin in a leaked video that showed him addressing convicts in a prison colony last September. “I can get you out of here alive. But I can’t promise to bring you back that way.”
Prigozhin has since emerged as a regular presence near the front lines, and often in the headlines: handing out medals to soldiers and crowing about Wagner’s hard-fought victories when they come.
“They’re probably the most experienced army in the entire world today,” he boasted of Wagner soldiers following their seizure of the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine last January.
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