The inside man who shook the Kremlin: Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin, and what’s next for him?

Yevgeny
Prigozhin used
his
close
ties
to
Russian
President Vladimir
Putin to
get
rich
and
build
a
private
army
—
then
marched
it
on
Moscow
in
a stunning
challenge to
his
former
boss’s
rule.

The
Wagner
mercenary
group
chief
now
appears
to
have
abandoned
that
rebellion
for
exile
in
Belarus,
in
a
deal
that
leaves
more
questions
than
answers.

“Prigozhin
would
be
naive
to
think
this
is
over,”
Michael
A.
Horowitz,
a
geopolitical
and
security
analyst
who
is
the
head
of
intelligence
at
Le
Beck
consultancy,
told
NBC
News.

Here’s
a
look
at
the
man
behind
Russia’s
biggest
insurrection
in
its
post-Soviet
history,
who
went
from
prison
to
leading
a
military
revolt
that
got
within
a
hundred
or
so
miles
of
Moscow.

Who
knows
what’s
next.

A
St.
Petersburg
native
like
Putin,
Prigozhin,
62,
has
one
of
the
most
varied
biographies
among
the
Kremlin
elite.

He
has
admitted
to
serving
10
years
in
prison
as
a
young
man,
though
he
has
not
said
what
for.
He
then
grew
a
hot-dog
stand
into
a
chain
of
upscale
restaurants,
eventually
drawing
the
Russian
president’s
attention
and
earning
lucrative
contracts
to
cater
for
public
school
and
Kremlin
events,
which
earned
him
the
nickname
“Putin’s
chef.” 

Over
time,
Prigohzin
has
catered
to
a
variety
of
Putin’s
other
needs.

The
Russian
leader
has
sought
to
project
influence
around
the
world
—
from
his
neighbors
in
eastern
Europe
to
the
Middle
East
and
Africa 
—
and
Prigozhin
has
helped
him
do
it.

Around
2014,
he
created
Wagner,
according
to
a
member
who
was
recruited
to
the
mercenary
outfit
by
Prigozhin
in
its
early
days. 

The
Kremlin
had
just
seized
Ukraine’s Crimean
Peninsula and
had
its
sights
on
the
eastern
Donbas
region,
where
a
conflict
was
brewing
after
mass
protests
in
Kyiv
toppled
a
pro-Russian
government.
Suddenly,
Putin
had
a
war
on
his
hands
but
did
not
want
to
send
in
regular
army
troops
or
call
up
a
draft
and
face
the
possibility
of
Russians
coming
home
in
body
bags.  

So
Prigozhin
provided
a
solution. 

He
created
a
force
of
undesirables,
people
with
military
experience
or
a
history
of
violence
who
were
looking
for
jobs
and
may
be
less
likely
to
be
missed
if
they
were
killed.
Wagner’s
early
operations
in
Ukraine
were
somewhat
successful,
and
the
conflict
there
continued
without
pushback
from
the
Russian
public.

The
Kremlin
has
always
denied
any
official
military
presence
in
eastern
Ukraine,
and
while
Prigozhin
had
previously
refuted
suggestions
that
he
was
connected
to
Wagner,
last
year
he
admitted
on
social
media
that
he
had
created
the
group
in
2014
and
it
had
taken
part
in
the
conflict
in
eastern
Ukraine.

Prigohzin’s
next
mission
got
much
more
attention,
particularly
from
the
U.S. 

He
founded
the
Internet
Research
Agency,
the
bot
farm
that
interfered
in
the
2016
U.S.
presidential
election,
polluting
social
media
with
disinformation,
lies
and
skepticism
about
the
legitimacy
of
the
electoral
process.
Whether
it
swayed
the
outcome
of
the
election
remains
an
open
question,
but
the
U.S.
intelligence
community
called
it
out
and sanctioned
Prigozhin,
who
said
last
year
that he
had
interfered
in
U.S.
elections and
would
continue
to
do
so.

After
that
came
Russia’s
intervention
in
the
war in
Syria.
Putin
wanted
to
back
President Bashar
al-Assad and
fight
rebels
backed
by
the
West,
but,
again,
do
it
off
the
books
with
few
official
Russian
casualties.
There,
Wagner
once
again
became
instrumental
to
his
efforts,
and
its
fighters
remain
on
the
ground
in
the
Middle
Eastern
country
many
years
later. 

Ever
the
entrepreneur,
Prigozhin
also
expanded
his
operations
into
Africa.  

In
the Central
African
Republic,
Prigohzin
discovered
that
if
Wagner
propped
up
the
weak
government
and
helped
it
fight
off
a
rebellion,
the
group
could
help
itself
to
the
impoverished
country’s
resources,
mainly
gold
and
blood
diamonds. 

Now
the
man
who
restarted
his
life
with
a
single
hot-dog
stand
had
an
army
that
was
battle
tested,
experienced
in
disinformation,
and
perhaps
most
crucially,
had
its
own
independent
source
of
funding.  

With
the full-scale
invasion of
Ukraine
in
2022,
Prigozhin
was
able
and
eager
to
again
prove
his
value
to
Putin.

As
the
Russian
army
came
up
against
surprisingly
strong
resistance,
Wagner’s
mercenaries
came
in
handy
in
the
bloodiest
of
battles.
To
bolster
their
ranks,
Prigozhin turned
to
a
place
he
knew
well,
promising
convicts
in
Russian
prisons
freedom
if
they
could
survive
more
than
six
months
on
the
front
lines.

Wagner
led
the
fighting
for
several
key
Ukrainian
cities,
including Bakhmut,
an
eastern
city
that
became
a
key
symbolic
prize
for
Putin
when
he claimed
to
have
seized it
last
month
at
the
cost
of
thousands
of
men. 

While
he
touted
his
mercenary
forces
as
game
changers
in
Ukraine
and
gradually
entered
the
public
spotlight,
Prigozhin
increasingly
clashed
with
the
military
establishment
in
Moscow.

Using
his
well-oiled
social
media
machine,
Prigozhin
emerged
as
a
leading
voice
for
hardliners
and
influential
pro-war
figures
who
were
critical
of
the
Kremlin’s
approach
to
the
war.

He
accused
the
Defense
Ministry
and
its
head,
Sergei
Shoigu,
of
downplaying
Wagner’s
role
and
not
supplying
his
fighters with
sufficient
ammunition,
while
blaming
“incompetent”
military
leadership
for
Russia’s
failures
in
Ukraine.

The
bitter
feud
escalated
in
recent
weeks
as
Moscow
gave
all
private
mercenary
forces
until
July
1
to
sign
contracts
with
the
Defense
Ministry,
which
Prigozhin
refused.

The
standoff
then
exploded
and
Prigozhin
launched
an
armed
rebellion
on
Friday
after
alleging
that
the
Russian
army
fired
at
his
mercenaries. 

While
Putin
initially
seemed
happy
to
let
the
internal
squabbles
play
out,
it
appears
even
the
Russian
leader
may
have
underestimated
just
how
powerful
and
daring
Prigohzin
had
become. 

“I
think
what
really
triggered
his
decision
to
carry
out
a
mad
dash
toward
Moscow
was
the
order
issued
earlier
this
month,”
said
Horowitz,
referring
to
the
demand
that
his
fighters
sign
Defense
Ministry
contracts.
Prigozhin
saw
this
as
a
“prelude
to
disbanding”
the
private
army
he
had
worked
for
years
to
build,
Horowitz
said.

This
was
a
signal
for
the
mercenary
chief
that
“Putin
had
sided
with
his
enemies,”
he
said,
adding
that
Prigozhin
“may
have
felt
that
his
own
safety
was
no
longer
guaranteed,
in
the
long
run,
and
that
if
he
did
not
act
he
would
end
up
sidelined
(at
best)
or
dead.
He
had
nothing
to
lose.”

Ahead
of
the
rebellion,
U.S.
intelligence
agencies
had
collected
information
that
Prigozhin
had
been
planning
to
challenge
Russia’s
senior
military
leaders
and
briefed
congressional
leaders
about
it
last
week,
a
source
familiar
with
the
matter
told
NBC
News.
They
added
that
the
intelligence
revealed
that
Wagner
had
been
amassing
forces
and
weapons,
although
the
intelligence
wasn’t
definitive.

In
the
end,
it’s
unclear
what
Prigozhin
has
gained. 

He
said
Saturday
he
was
within
120
miles
of
the
Russian
capital
but
decided
to
turn
his
troops
around
to
“avoid
spilling
Russian
blood.”

The
Kremlin
said
Prigozhin
would
not
face
any
charges
and
would
go
to
Belarus,
whose
leader,
Alexander
Lukashenko,
apparently
helped
broker
the
deal. 

A
big
question
that’s
left
hanging
is
what
will
happen
to
his
Wagner
troops? 

The
Kremlin
has
said
it
would
not
prosecute
those
fighters
who
took
part
in
the
rebellion,
and
that
Wagner
forces
could
still
sign
contracts
with
the
Defense
Ministry
if
they
wanted
to.

It’s
possible
that
the
estimated
25,000
Wagner
fighters
will
be
dispersed,
“under
suspicion,”
across
Russia’s
regular
army,
said
Lt.
Gen.
Ben
Hodges,
the
former
commander
of
the
U.S.
Army
in
Europe.

As
for
Prigozhin
himself,
the
true
nature
of
the
resolution
to
the
crisis
remains
unknown,
as
is
the
Wagner
chief’s
future. 

But
Putin
is
not
known
to
allow
his
enemies
to
live
quietly
in
exile,
and
his
description
of
Prigozhin
as
a
traitor
suggests
he
viewed
the
revolt,
like
many
analysts,
as
a
direct
threat
to
his
rule.

“Going
to
Belarus
may
be
an
option
—
he
seems
to
know
and
trust
Lukashenko
very
well
—
but
he
would
still
be
in
danger
there,”
said
Horowitz.
“My
best
bet
is
that
he
will
continue
to
operate
in
Ukraine,
rather
than
Belarus,
where
he
can
justify
maintaining
relative
freedom
among
men
who
are
loyal
to
him.

“But
either
way,
he
has
cornered
himself
by
either
going
too
far,
or
not
going
far
enough,”
Horowitz
said.
“If
he
lays
low,
he
may
still
end
up
drinking
poisoned
tea,
and
if
he
is
too
loud,
he
will
become
even
more
of
a
liability
for
Moscow.”