Troops loyal to Yevgeny Prigozhin—a previous ally of Russia’s President, Vladmir Putin, who has turned lethal rival—have seized armed service sites around the Russian towns of Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh, and are reportedly advancing on Moscow in a heavily armed convoy.
Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary team which has been heavily concerned in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has urged compatriots to sign up for his “march for justice” following rebelling from the authority of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and armed forces main Valery Gerasimov.
In an deal with on Saturday early morning, Putin accused Wagner of a “stab in the back again” on the Russian condition, including: “People who have organized an armed riot will be held accountable.”
Ukrainian forces are just months into a counteroffensive, aimed at retaking their territory from Moscow, which has so significantly accomplished limited accomplishment. By producing chaos behind Russian traces, the Wagner rebellion could enable Kyiv obtain the breakthrough it requirements.
Picture-illustration by Newsweek Source Images by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Getty
Newsweek has offered a summary of Prigozhin’s rise and his promptly modifying romance with Putin, previously his chief benefactor.
From Prisoner to ‘Putin’s Chef’
Prigozhin was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in 1961. Right after failing to come to be a cross-country skier, he turned to criminal offense, conducting a sequence of robberies, such as 1 in 1981 when he chocked a woman unconscious, in accordance to court docket files found by British newspaper The Guardian. Quickly following, he was arrested and sentenced to 13 decades in jail, of which he served 9.
After becoming freed, as the Soviet Union crumbled close to him, Prigozhin commenced his business enterprise profession promoting very hot puppies. He had a talent for small business, and by 1995 owned aspect of a supermarket chain and experienced opened a variety of luxurious restaurants.
A single of these restaurants, New Island in St. Petersburg, turned a favored haunt of Vladimir Putin, at the time a former KGB agent who grew to become an increasingly effective figure in the city’s politics. After currently being elected president in 2000, Putin ongoing to repeated the eatery, from time to time currently being accompanied by foreign dignitaries this kind of as former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
Putin started favoring Harmony, a catering corporation established by Prigozhin, for significant contracts, earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef.”
Wagner Group
In 2014, adhering to regime modify in Kyiv, Russian troops seized Crimea, and started supporting an rebellion by pro-Russian separatists in the east of Ukraine. That year, the mercenary group Wagner was launched with Dmitriy Utkin, a Russian military veteran, serving as its chief.
Prigozhin originally denied involvement, even suing media groups these kinds of as Bellingcat which alleged he was concerned, but in 2022 he admitted founding Wagner.
In a social media submit, he commented: “I cleaned the aged weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and uncovered specialists who could assistance me with this. From that second, on 1 May perhaps 2014, a group of patriots was born, which afterwards came to be termed the Wagner Battalion.”
Whilst mercenary groups are technically unlawful in Russia, Wagner obviously been given condition favor, and distribute to turn out to be a world wide drive. The group turned involved in the Syrian civil war, backing Kremlin ally Bashar al-Assad, together with steps in a variety of African international locations, which includes the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan.
Involvement in Ukraine
When Putin released his all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Wagner quickly turned included as Russian troops have been pushed again from Kyiv and fought to a virtual standstill additional east.
Wagner started recruiting seriously, notably from Russian prisons, with British intelligence estimating the team achieved a toughness of 50,000.
As Russia’s common army grew to become bogged down, Wagner reached a quantity of victories, seizing many cities in late 2022 and early 2023, including Soledar and most of Bakhmut. The group relied intensely on previous prisoners to carry out the attacks.
Nevertheless, Prigozhin turned increasingly critical of the Russian military services leadership, accusing them of intentionally failing to sufficiently supply his forces and of basic incompetence.
Incredibly active on social media platform Telegram, in May well Prigozhin mentioned Ukrainian weapons “eliminate our soldiers, though a joyful grandpa thinks that all the things is going properly for him.” Grandfather is a regularly utilised Russian nickname for Putin, while Prigozhin afterwards insisted he was referring to an unnamed typical, The Guardian described.
When Wagner started its insurrection on Friday, Prigozhin originally held off criticizing Putin right, but this altered right after the president branded his steps a betrayal in a Television set address. In a assertion posted on Telegram, Wagner said: “Regarding the betrayal of the motherland, the president was deeply mistaken. We are patriots of our homeland. Putin produced the wrong preference. All the even worse for him…quickly Russia will have a new president.”
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