Restauranteur, warlord, oligarch – Yevgeny Prighozin, known as ‘Putin’s Chef’, has recently gained notoriety as the Wagner Group, a private military company (PMC) which he owns and leads, captured the town of Soledar in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The capture of Soledar leaves Russian forces a small step closer to taking the heavily contested city of Bakhmut. However, its main significance lies within the context of Prigozhin’s political ambitions back home in Russia.
Many speculate that Prigozhin is positioning himself as a potential successor to Putin. In doing so, he has branded himself as an ultranationalist populist, railing against Russia’s elite while praising the “regular plowmen”. St Petersburg’s Governor, Alexander Beglov, and Russian military leadership have found themselves the subjects of his ire.
But Just Who is ‘Putin’s Chef’?
Prigozhin, 61, emerged from the collapse of the USSR as a recently released convict running a hotdog stand in St Petersburg. From there, he moved into the restaurant industry. In 1997, Prigozhin and a business partner opened ‘New Island’, an upmarket restaurant on a disused ship docked in the centre of St Petersburg. This soon became a favourite of a certain Vladimir Putin. In the early years of his presidency, ‘New Island’ hosted birthday parties for Putin as well as dinners with foreign dignitaries, including the then US president George W. Bush.
By the early 2010s it became clear that Prigozhin had firmly made his way into Putin’s inner circle and the patronage system that defines Russian politics as he won contracts to be the main caterer for the Kremlin, Russia’s public school system, and the Russian military. According to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, founded by Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny, Prigozhin received $3.1 billion worth of government contracts between 2013-2018.
Since then, Prigozhin has diversified his interests, becoming an integral part of Putin’s efforts to expand Russia’s global influence, especially in Africa and the Middle East. In 2018, Prigozhin was indicted by a US federal grand jury for his role in Russia’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. The Internet Research Agency (IRA), a ‘troll factory’ founded in 2013 and controlled by Prigozhin, ran sophisticated social media campaigns, published articles, and even organised rallies aimed at influencing opinion in Russia, Ukraine, and the US. Facebook reported in 2017 that IRA campaigns focussing on American politics had reached 126 million users. However, despite the high profile of Prigozhin’s interference in American politics, research has questioned the efficacy of IRA campaigns, suggesting that they failed to reach swing voters, instead engaging with already highly polarised voters.
In September 2022, Prigozhin came out as the founder and leader of the Wagner Group, a PMC founded in 2014 as a means for the Kremlin to covertly support separatists in Eastern Ukraine. This move came after footage was leaked of Prigozhin personally recruiting prisoners to fight with his forces in Ukraine, with the promise of freedom after six months of service. It’s also a sharp U-turn after years of his denying involvement in the PMC. OpenDemocracy have reported that in 2021, the UK Government aided Prigozhin’s denial by allowing to him to use and pay British law firms that he was using to sue British journalists attempting to expose Wagner’s operations. This was in spite of sanctions that should have theoretically prevented such actions.
Beyond Ukraine, the Wagner Group has also allegedly been active in Syria, Libya, Sudan, Mali, Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Burkina Faso, to name but a few. The Wagner groups role in these states has ranged from providing military training, personal protection for senior politicians, and guarding mines to fighting for rebel generals as they did in Libya and even directly engaging with US commandos as they did in Syria.
Typically, wherever the Wagner Group has gone, Russian political interreference, resource extraction companies linked to Progozhin, and allegations of human rights abuses and war crimes have followed. The story of Russia’s involvement in CAR provides a prime example. In 2017, CAR’s recently elected president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, met with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. Once Russia had successfully lobbied the UN to remove its arms embargo on CAR, a series of agreements followed. These saw Wagner, under the guise of Sewa Security Services, set up camp in Bangui for the purposes of providing military training, and personal protection for the President.
Around the same time, Lobaye invest, a mining company owned by Prigozhin, was granted rights to explore for and mine gold and diamond reserves around CAR. Since then, Touadéra has surrounded himself with Russian advisors such as Valery Zakharov, Facebook has alleged that Russian linked networks have been responsible for disinformation campaigns targeting CAR’s elections, Wagner have successfully defended Touadéra’s government from a serious rebel attack, and three Russian journalists investigating Wagner’s role in CAR have been murdered. The UN has also accused the Wagner Group of “committing systemic and grave human rights and international humanitarian law violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, disappearances and summary execution.”
Russian activity In CAR exposes a model for Russia’s expansion into Africa. Central to this model is Prigozhin and his Wagner PMC. As a private, non-state, entity, Wagner gives Russia plausible deniability, reducing accountability for their actions. This also allows for Wagner to adopt more heavy handed, and at times more effective, strategies. Being a private company, Wagner is also able to employ its operatives on a contractual basis and purchase weapons from controversial sources such as North Korea, making it more cost effective than traditional military.
Through Prigozhin’s exploration, mining and extraction firms, Russia is also given access to valuable natural resources. Coupled with electoral interference, diplomatic efforts, and trade, this system creates governments dependent on Russian support, thus expanding the Kremlin’s influence and countering the influence of China, the US, and Europe. This is of course, theoretical. In reality, Wagner, and Russia’s success has as of yet been rather limited beyond CAR.
But is Progozhin more than just a cog in the Kremlin’s expansionary machine? Could he really succeed Putin? That Beglov remains as governor of St Petersburg, and that Valery Gerasimov, who is less likely to support Wagner, has been appointed as the new commander of Russian troops in Ukraine, would suggest that Prigozhin’s influence is limited. However, should Russia suffer serious losses in Ukraine, and Russian politics descend into chaos, it may provide an opportunity for a popular strongman such as Prigozhin.