‘Putin’s chef’ and his private Wagner militia are on a roll in Ukraine

Yevgeny Prigozhin is one of few Russians having a good war and his influence on Vladimir Putin is growing

By Natalia Vasilyeva, RUSSIA CORRESPONDENT 14 October 2022 •

On a frosty night in March 1980, 19-year-old Yevgeny Prigozhin and three of his friends walked out of a restaurant on the outskirts of Leningrad and saw a young woman in leather boots.

One of the men asked her for a light and before she knew it, Prigozhin stood behind her back, strangling her. A few moments later she fell on the pavement unconscious. Prigozhin and his friends took off her leather boots, and also golden earrings, and fled the scene.

The Leningrad teenager, who spent ten years in prison for his crime, has now emerged as one of Vladimir Putin’s most trusted allies in the war with Ukraine.

His once secret private army – the notorious Wagner militia – is on the cusp of a major victory to retake the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on the front lines of the Donbas.

And he even appears to be calling the shots in Moscow, with a weakening Putin giving into pressure this week to appoint Gen Sergei Surovikin, known as General Armageddon, to take over the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

Prigozhin – unlike almost everyone around him – appears to be having a good war. Some even say his recent movements suggest a tilt for power.

The 61-year-old former convict has for years been one of the most mysterious power brokers in Russia: not only did he found Wagner, but he also bankrolled a secretive project to disrupt the 2016 US presidential election.

All the while he threw gala dinners for the Russian president, which earned him the nickname of Putin’s chef.

For a man who spent years suing numerous journalists for allegations about his criminal past and his link to the shadowy Wagner, Prigozhin has been unusually vocal in recent weeks.

His chequered early history, including the robbery in Leningrad, emerged in a Soviet 1981 court ruling.

“Prigozhin kept strangling (the victim) until she lost consciousness,” the ruling said of his attack for boots and earrings.

Prigozhin got out of the prison just as the Soviet Union collapsed and despite his criminal record was not known to be involved in the city’s then-rich mafia scene.

His time in a prison colony, which in the 1980s still bore the hallmarks of a totalitarian Gulag, left an imprint on his world view according to a biographer.

‘Putin’s Chef’ has been described by former employees as a violent, short-tempered man.

Denis Korotkov, who has documented Mr Prigozhin’s rise to prominence called him as “an uncouth, petty tyrant who has a tight grip on his businesses and knows them inside out, prone to erratic ideas.”

Mr Prigozhin, who was raised by a single mother, started off in business in the early 1990s, as he said in an interview, by selling hot dogs at an outdoor market in St Petersburg, making an enviable $1,000 a month.

Just twelve years later, the former convict who dropped out of the pharmacy school was mysteriously seen hovering behind the back of President Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila as they sat down for dinner with George W Bush and his wife at Prigozhin’s floating restaurant in the centre of Mr Putin’s hometown.

In the ensuing years, Prigozhin was seen personally bringing the plate to Mr Putin at dinners, which earned him the nickname.

Apart from the restaurant business, Prigozhin largely owes his fortune to lucrative government contracts that his catering company has secured all over Russia, from school canteens to the defence ministry’s mess halls.

His Wagner mercenaries were heavily involved in the breakout from the town of Popasna this summer, which led to the fall of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine.

Mr Prigozhin’s private army is now believed to be leading the offensive near the strategic town of Bakhmut.

But he only admitted his links to Wagner – whose fighters have been implicated in war crimes from Syria to Mali – this year.

In recent weeks Prigozhin has started touring Russian prison colonies looking for more recruits in “leaked” videos published widely online.

“Is there anyone else who can take you out of this prison?” he is heard saying, addressing inmates in one video.

“Just God and Allah – in coffins. I’m taking you out of here alive but will not necessarily bring you back alive.”

In another video last weekend, Prigozhin was seen chatting with wounded convicts-turned-mercenaries, one of whom was convicted of murdering a judge.

The recent appointment of Gen Sergei Surovikin, whose notoriety in Syria won him the nickname of General Armageddon, to lead the Russian military operation in Ukraine may also point to the growing influence of Mr Prigozhin who has been promoting the general via social media channels linked to his media empire.

“This war has significantly expanded and strengthened his mandate and essentially made him share responsibility with Putin for what’s happening in Ukraine: Prigozhin has been contributing resources to the war and sustaining losses, which gives him a special status (in the Kremlin),” Tatyana Stanovaya, an analyst, told The Telegraph.

Ukraine’s counter-offensive that kicked off in September has forced the Russian power elites to finally consider the possibility of a military defeat.

It has also brought to the fore figures who were once considered too radical such as Chechen leader and Ramzan Kadyrov who have been seen growing in influence beyond their usual remit.

The pair in recent weeks went as far as lashing out at Russian generals for letting the Ukrainian recapture their level – a level of public criticism that would be unthinkable before the war.

“Prigozhin is clearly on a roll, and there’s no one in the Kremlin who can or would want to dress him down,” Ms Stanovaya said.

“This is a symptom of the new times when power players in Russia are testing the limits of what’s allowed.”