pmc wagner prigo

see PRIGO main
prolly neglectedsee mercenaries lil grn mensudan
see syria assadsee putin ukraine warsee human rights violationsPIC====<a href="https://www.alternet.org/mercenary-boss-reporter-disturbing-message/">https://www.alternet.org/mercenary-boss-reporter-disturbing-message/</a>
an 3 23 no lnx
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'Check the torture cellar': Russian mercenary boss leaves U.S. reporter disturbing message about a 'corpse'

Maya Boddie March 30, 2023
Russian

mercenary leader and Vladimir Putin's "chef", Yevgeny Prigozhin, sent a

disturbing audio message Thursday, in response to The Daily Beast

reporter, Allison Quinn's, question regarding the Russian Wagner Group.

"Dear

Allison, baby, you are asking too many questions today," the private

military company boss said in the message. "I am busy searching my

garden plot for the corpse of your colleague, and you are asking me

about some new events."

The Daily Beast reports:

Prigozhin's

ominous statement about corpse-hunting in his garden is likely a

reference to an earlier message the mercenary boss provided to The Daily

Beast, when asked about the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan

Gershkovich.

READ MORE: Vladimir Putin's 'chef' says his mercenaries 'will take Bakhmut anyway' despite Kremlin's 'envy'

Prigozhin told The Daily Beast he would "check the torture cellar in my house to see if he's there" – referring to Gershkovich.

"At

first glance, I didn't see him among the American journalists I keep

there by the dozens. I can, if you want, also look at the fresh graves

of foreign journalists on my house plot. But if I’m not mistaken, we

didn’t bury him there either," he said.

U.S citizen Gershkovich,

according to The Daily Beast, was arrested and "detained in the

west-central city of Yekaterinburg," Thursday, "the Federal Security

Service confirmed to state media." The reporter was "suspected of spying

in the interests of the U.S. government."

The Wall Street

Journal reports President Joe Biden "was briefed on the detention of

Mr. Gershkovich, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told

reporters," and "she reiterated earlier State Department warnings that

Americans are urged to avoid traveling to Russia."

READ MORE: Why Putin may be trying to 'weaken' a 'paramilitary mercenary' group he hired to fight in Ukraine: report

"We've been very clear about Americans not going to Russia. It is not safe," Jean-Pierre said.

Secretary

of State, Antony Blinken, said, "In the strongest possible terms, we

condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and

punish journalists and civil society voices."

READ MORE: 'Carefully, precisely, surgically': Russian oligarch tied to Putin admits to interfering in US elections

The

Daily Beast's full report is available at this link (subscription

required). The Wall Street Journal's full report is here (subscription

required).

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Why Putin may be trying to 'weaken' a 'paramilitary mercenary' group he hired to fight in Ukraine: report ›
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<a href="https://boingboing.net/2023/03/20/putin-bans-criticism-of-the-mercenaries-propping-up-russias-war-in-ukraine.html">https://boingboing.net/2023/03/20/putin-bans-criticism-of-the-mercenaries-propping-up-russias-war-in-ukraine.html
</a>=
<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2023/3/8/headlines/wagner_group_says_it_seized_eastern_bakhmut_nyt_reports_pro_ukrainian_group_sabotaged_pipelines">https://www.democracynow.org/2023/3/8/headlines/wagner_group_says_it_seized_eastern_bakhmut_nyt_reports_pro_ukrainian_group_sabotaged_pipelines</a>=omg pvt military?! pmc wagner?=<a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/10/19/russia-hack-wagner-group-yevgeny-prigozhin/">https://theintercept.com/2022/10/19/russia-hack-wagner-group-yevgeny-prigozhin/</a>
in SEPTEMBER, a video surfaced online apparently showing Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy businessman and close associate of Vladimir Putin, speaking to a group of incarcerated men in the yard of a Russian prison. Prigozhin was encouraging them to join the Wagner Group, the infamous mercenary organization he founded, and fight in Ukraine as a way out of prison.
The video signaled Prigozhin’s first apparent confirmation that he does, in fact, control Wagner. While Prigozhin had been known for years for his connection to the group, he had until recently always denied that he controlled its fighters, who have deployed in support of Russian campaigns in half a dozen conflicts around the world, where many have been accused of human rights abuses that include torture, rape, and the mass killing of civilians. More videos confirming Prigozhin’s role at the helm of Wagner have since emerged, and for the first time he acknowledged founding the group in a statement issued last month through one of his companies.
Wagner got its start during the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and as evidence of its mercenaries’ abuses mounted, Prigozhin fiercely fought off reports of his links to them, often enlisting the help of attorneys to do so. Now, a cache of hacked emails and documents reviewed by The Intercept details for the first time the behind-the-scenes relationship between Prigozhin’s legal team in Russia and several British and U.S. law firms that worked on his behalf to contest sanctions; defend him against U.S. prosecution; discredit journalists investigating his shadowy businesses; and sue Eliot Higgins, the founder of the investigative website Bellingcat.
Earlier this year, Higgins’s attorneys took action against the British firm that sued him for defamation on behalf of Prigozhin. In a complaint to the U.K. Solicitors Regulation Authority, Higgins accused the firm, Discreet Law LLP, of filing a so-called SLAPP, or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation: litigation intended to intimidate or censor critics into silence by saddling them with the costs of defending themselves in court. Higgins told The Intercept that the hacked emails further reinforce his position.
“We always knew this was a SLAPP action and a possible abuse of process. It now appears that Prigozhin and, worse, his lawyers knew as well, but went ahead with it anyway,” Higgins wrote in a statement to The Intercept after reviewing the emails. “It seems this was a calculated effort by Prigozhin, aided by his lawyers, to quash the free press as part of a cynical PR campaign to challenge international sanctions.”
While reliance on foreign law firms is hardly unusual or illegal for an oligarch with global business interests, the emails and documents paint the most detailed picture yet of how a well-known but secretive figure — dubbed as “Putin’s chef” by the Western media because of his catering company’s business relationship with the Kremlin — worked with lawyers to clean up his worsening reputation as a Russian warlord. As he faced intensifying scrutiny in recent years, and as his businesses came under pressure following sanctions, Prigozhin relied on the services of at least four U.S. and U.K.-based firms, according to the documents.
The emails paint Prigozhin as a man fixated on challenging the narrative that had formed around him — even though he has come to embrace that narrative in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia launched in February. In a failed effort to contest sanctions, some of Prigozhin’s attorneys sought to discredit the growing body of reporting that connected him to the Wagner Group, which he believed to be the basis for the sanctions against him.
But while surrounding himself with teams of legal advisors, Prigozhin at times sought to do things his own way. The hacked documents, for instance, include a lengthy draft letter Prigozhin wrote to former President Donald Trump urging him to appoint former special counsel Robert Mueller to prosecute one of his companies, which U.S. officials had accused of election interference, so that Prigozhin could personally face Mueller in court and clear his name. (Prosecutors later dropped the case.) That draft letter, which appears to ultimately not have been sent, stated that it was written against the advice of Prigozhin’s U.S. attorneys.
The documents and emails were unearthed in a series of hacks against over 50 Russian companies and government agencies after this year’s invasion, in what appears to be the largest cumulative hack of a nation-state to have ever taken place. The companies hacked included a top Russian law firm that represents Prigozhin: Capital Legal Services, which has offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Helsinki, Finland. The identities of the hackers are not known. The CLS files were hacked by activists associated with Anonymous, but The Intercept was not able to speak with the people behind that hack.
...As Putin’s invasion of Ukraine escalated into a monthslong conflict with tens of thousands of casualties, the Wagner Group played a symbolic and at times strategic role supporting Putin’s war with thousands of mercenaries.European officials believe that upward of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/19/russia-deployed-20000-mercenaries-ukraine-donbas-region" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">20,000 mercenaries</a> were deployed in support of Russia’s war in the first months of the invasion, including fighters Wagner had recruited in Syria and Libya, where it has long operated. Wagner mercenaries are believed to have been behind a series of so-called <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60947877" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">false flag</a> attacks in eastern Ukraine before the invasion, intended to give Russia a pretext to attack. Since the invasion, Ukrainian officials have accused Wagner mercenaries of committing war crimes, alongside Russian soldiers, that include the killing of civilians in Bucha. Wagner mercenaries have also faced <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wagner-group-role-in-ukraine-wearing-down-russian-mercenary-force-2022-9https:/www.businessinsider.com/wagner-group-role-in-ukraine-wearing-down-russian-mercenary-force-2022-9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">losses in Ukraine</a>, including after U.S.-provided rockets hit one of the group’s bases in the Luhansk region in August. As Putin has sought to replenish the ranks of Russia’s military, Prigozhin appears to have done the same with Wagner’s, including by recruiting in Russian prisons.Prigozhin had long been known to U.S. and European officials, who have investigated his activities, including <a href="https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">interfering</a> in the 2016 U.S. election by funding a troll factory, the Internet Research Agency. In 2018, he was<a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;"> among</a> the individuals and companies indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy in relation to the election interference. Two years later, just weeks before the case was supposed to go to trial, prosecutors <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-concord/u-s-prosecutors-drop-mueller-era-case-against-russian-firm-idUSKBN21405P" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">dropped</a> charges against two of Prigozhin’s companies, Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering. But Prigozhin continues to face charges. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin was under sanctions in the U.S. over that interference, and in Europe over Wagner’s involvement in the conflict in Libya. Along with his mother, wife, and children, Prigozhin <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6f3ce193-ab7d-4449-ac1b-751d49b1aaf8" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">faced additional sanctions</a> as a result of the invasion....=ukraine waran 8 22An alleged Russian mercenary brandished a human skull as a prop during a recent speech in which he justified his participation in genocide against Ukraine's population.The man was identified as "Igor Mangushev" by Ukrainian <a href="https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1563753741697916928" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">blogger Den Kazansky</a>.
"He is from Moscow. The Russian authorities deny that the Russian army organized the massacre in Bucha. But the Russian military openly calls for massacres and takes pride in torturing and killing Ukrainians," <a href="https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1563753741697916928" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Kazansky tweeted</a> early Sunday morning along with a video of Mangushev's macabre performance.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/anti-russia-backlash-boycotts-ukraine/" target="self" title="view post: Journalist: How far should 'anti-Russia backlash' and boycotts over Ukraine go?" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Journalist: How far should 'anti-Russia backlash' and boycotts over Ukraine go?</a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/anti-russia-backlash-boycotts-ukraine/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="self" title="view post: Journalist: How far should 'anti-Russia backlash' and boycotts over Ukraine go?" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">"We're alive, and this guy's already dead. Let him burn in Hell. He wasn't lucky. We'll make a goblet out of his skull," Mangushev boasted.</a>"We are not at war with people of blood and flesh. We are at war with the idea – with the idea of Ukraine as an anti-Russian state. There can be no peace. We must de-Ukrainize Ukraine. We must return our Russian lands. We are not at war with people. We are at war with the idea," he proclaimed.
"This is the tragedy of Ukrainian soldiers. We don't care how many; we have to kill them," Mangushev continued. "If we were at war with people, we could make peace with them. But we are at war with the idea, so all bearers of an idea must be killed. Like this guy, probably he did not want to lie near Azovstal."A member of the audience asked for confirmation that the deceased was "definitely not a civilian."READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/kremlin-propagandists-assassinate-volodymyr-zelesnkyy/" target="self" title="view post: Kremlin propagandists want to assassinate 'ghoul' Volodymyr Zelenskyy to defeat 'unclean' Ukraine" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Kremlin propagandists want to assassinate 'ghoul' Volodymyr Zelenskyy to defeat 'unclean' Ukraine</a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/kremlin-propagandists-assassinate-volodymyr-zelesnkyy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="self" title="view post: Kremlin propagandists want to assassinate 'ghoul' Volodymyr Zelenskyy to defeat 'unclean' Ukraine" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Mangushev maintained that "this is definitely not a civilian" and bragged that "we killed him ourselves."</a>The unidentified onlooker then pondered, mockingly, "did he understand what the 'Russian world' is?"
Mangushev replied that "I think he did."Notable Twitter observers like Russian Media Monitor founder and Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis <a href="https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1563753741697916928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1563755138891800578%7Ctwgr%5E812cc13b98a419fae35d05a1ab4f0ebd26dda093%7Ctwcon%5Es2&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2657954857publish" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">reacted with horror</a>."Pay attention to those genocidal barbarians," <a href="https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1563868760355885056?s=20&t=vU5E1eVlIAfOjZq5Jr68ew" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">she wrote</a>. "They're telling on themselves."Watch below <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/we-have-to-kill-them" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">or at this link</a>.=<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa</a>
libya?

Putin’s Notorious ‘Chef’ Is Now Meddling Across AfricaThe man indicted in the U.S. for interfering in the 2016 election is spreading Russia’s reach across the continent.
undefinedBusinessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as Putin’s “chef” because of his catering company and ties to the Kremlin, and Vladimir Putin.

By , , and The secretive businessman known as Vladimir Putin’s “chef” for his Kremlin catering work is alleged to have helped Russia seize parts of Ukraine, turn the tide in the Syrian war and meddle in U.S. elections. Now he’s reaching deep into Africa with an army of mercenaries and spin doctors in tow to cash in on his newfound expertise.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a restaurateur from Putin’s native St. Petersburg, has emerged as an unlikely point man in Russia’s belated push to bolster its geopolitical might by rekindling Cold War ties across a largely underdeveloped region laden with untapped mineral wealth. Lacking the financial muscle of its main rivals, the U.S., Europe and China, Russia is carving out a niche by shoring up strongmen in unstable but potentially rich states who have a taste for Russian weaponry.
Prigozhin and his hodgepodge of contract soldiers and political operatives are offering security, arms training and electioneering services in exchange for mining rights and other opportunities, two people familiar with the matter said. He’s already active in or moving into 10 countries that Russia’s military already has relationships with: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Madagascar, Angola, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic.
Presidents of Russia and Turkey meet for talks in St Petersburg]
This spurt of activity comes as Putin prepares to host more than 50 leaders for the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019. It’s an event that will cement “Russia’s active presence in the region,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said before a sweep through the continent earlier this year.
The low-profile nature of Prigozhin’s businesses ensures some deniability for the Kremlin. Putin, who gave Prigozhin an award for his service to the state in 2014, this year compared his old ally’s international work to that of George Soros, the American billionaire financier who’s long been accused by the Kremlin of subverting governments at Washington’s behest.
“The Russians want influence with governments, they want economic access and they’re much more flexible—that’s their advantage,” said Peter Pham, head of the Washington-based Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. “It doesn’t cost very much to send a couple of hundred guys to shore up a president.”
Prigozhin, 57, didn’t respond to email and phone requests for comment via his Concord Catering company, and officials in the countries he’s targeting had no comment on his activities.
Prigozhin and Concord were among the three Russian businesses and 13 people Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted in February for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  A U.S. judge on Nov. 15 rejected a bid to dismiss the charges by another of Prigozhin’s indicted companies. 
Africa has been largely an afterthought for Putin, who came to power almost two decades ago focused on regaining Russia’s lost superpower status. After the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, Russia’s presence in Africa dwindled dramatically; now the region is a focus for Kremlin efforts to reassert its geopolitical prowess and open new markets for domestic companies hamstrung by Western sanctions.
Russian InfluenceMoscow has been ramping up military and political ties with African nations
As relations with the West continue to plumb new lows, Putin is finally pursuing a comprehensive strategy for developing commercial and security ties with the continent as a whole, according to Polina Slyusarchuk, who runs Intexpertise, an Africa-focused research group in St. Petersburg.
Russia has suffered setbacks, particularly in South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa froze his predecessor’s multibillion-dollar nuclear power project with Russia after he took office in February. But Putin is increasingly putting money behind the courtships, writing off some $20 billion of debt held by African countries last year.
More recently, Egypt won a $25 billion Russian loan to build its first nuclear power plant. And Russia is in talks with Eritrea to establish its first logistics hub on the Red Sea, not far from the Pentagon’s only permanent base in Africa and China’s first military facility abroad, both in Djibouti.
In March, Lavrov, Putin’s long-serving foreign minister, made a five-nation swing through Africa that included a stop in Zimbabwe, where Russian companies are involved in a $3 billion platinum-mining venture, the country’s biggest investment project. Prigozhin wasn’t far behind.
Prigozhin’s political consultants advised Emmerson Mnangagwa on his disputed victory in the July election to succeed Robert Mugabe, who turned Zimbabwe into an international pariah during his four-decade rule, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Mnangagwa’s main opponent accused “Russians” of helping his rival manipulate the polls. The ruling Zanu-PF party has denied any Russian involvement in the election.
Putin gained a military toehold in the heart of the continent early this year, after the UN issued a waiver for Russia to arm and defend the government of the Central African Republic. The CAR, which is mired in civil conflict, appealed for help after France, its former colonial master, suddenly ended a three-year peacekeeping mission.
“Like any normal businessman, Prigozhin is looking for the most lucrative places to invest his money”
The work of Prigozhin’s mercenary venture, known loosely in the Russian media as Wagner, has already led to gold and diamond concessions in both the CAR and Sudan, according to Russian and French media reports. Three Russian journalists were murdered in the CAR in July. They were investigating Prigozhin’s activities, according to exiled tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was funding their trip.
Prigozhin is now expanding his reach across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo, the largest country in Africa after Algeria and one of the world’s richest in minerals, the people said. The former Belgian colony is about to elect a new leader for the first time since 2001, when Joseph Kabila succeeded his slain father.
Kabila recently named a trusted retired general as his ambassador to Russia, tasking him with negotiating arms supplies and assistance, according to a Western official who asked not to be identified. The DRC said through its embassy in Moscow that Russia hasn’t yet supplied any weapons. It also denied local media reports that Russians are actively involved in the election.
If Kabila’s EU-sanctioned protégé wins as expected, then the DRC’s military ties with Russia will intensify, which in turn will lead to more opportunities for Russian companies, according to Jean-Jacques Wondo, a Congolese security analyst based in Brussels. China has invested heavily in the DRC, but Beijing is reportedly growing increasingly frustrated with Kabila’s shifting demands.
“Kabila is desperate for outside help,” said Martin Fayulu, an opposition candidate in the Dec. 23 poll. “It’s not surprising Russia is moving into the Congo, given our vast mineral wealth.”
Madagascar, the world’s biggest producer of vanilla and a holder of major deposits of nickel, cobalt and uranium, is another chaotic country where Putin and Prigozhin share an interest. A Kremlin envoy flew to the island in March for talks with then-president Hery Rajaonarimampianina.
Russian election consultants affiliated with Prigozhin are in the country amid a tight race for the presidency between two other former leaders that will end next month, one of the people familiar with his activities said. Russia has backed several candidates, according to Jean-Claude de L’Estrac, a former Mauritius foreign minister and expert on Indian Ocean territories. The Madagascar Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
In Guinea, Russia is supporting a bid by President Alpha Conde to scrap term limits so he can seek to stay in power after his mandate ends in 2020, said the Western official with knowledge of Russia-Africa ties. The African state is the single largest supplier of bauxite for Russian aluminum giant United Co. Rusal. Guinea Foreign Minister Mamadi Toure and government spokesman Aboubacar Sylla didn’t answer calls seeking comment. 
RUSSIA-GUINEA-DIPLOMACYAlpha Conde and Vladimir Putin
Moving into North Africa, Prigozhin attended talks this month between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, who controls most of the eastern part of the oil-rich state. He’s providing military services to Haftar’s Libyan National Army in return for energy deals, two people familiar with the matter said. LNA spokesman Ahmed Mesmari didn’t answer repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Prigozhin’s private army, Wagner, which was sanctioned by the U.S. for its role in the 2014 Ukraine rebellion, drew international attention again in February, this time in Syria. As Bloomberg reported at the time, hundreds of its mercenaries were killed or wounded by U.S. forces as they advanced on a base held by Kurdish fighters. Wagner was trying to seize a nearby oil refinery for officials in Damascus who’d reportedly promised a share of future revenue.
“Like any normal businessman, Prigozhin is looking for the most lucrative places to invest his money,” said Irina Abramova, head of Russia’s state-funded Institute for African Studies in Moscow. “He thought, why shouldn’t I give it a go? And he should only be thanked for that if Africans benefit.”
— With assistance by Stepan Kravchenko, David Wainer, Samer Al-Atrush, Kamlesh Bhuckory, Godfrey Marawanyika, Samuel Gebre, Ougna Camara, Borges Nhamire, Alonso Soto, Pauline Bax, Candido Mendes, Paul Richardson, and Hayley Warrenhttps://yyy.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/11/yevgeny-prigozhin-who-is-the-man-leading-russias-push-into-africa
Former hotdog seller became known as ‘Putin’s chef’ because of his Kremlin catering contacts
by Luke Harding
Tue 11 Jun 2019 07.31 EDTLast modified on Tue 11 Jun 2019 12.05 EDTThe man behind Russia’s push into Africa is a former hotdog seller who went on to become a billionaire and global Kremlin action man thanks to his close relations with Vladimir Putin.
Yevgeny Prigozhin grew up in Putin’s home city of Leningrad. He spent nine years in jail after being convicted by a Soviet court of robbery and other crimes. When he emerged from prison he decided to go into business, first opening a hotdog stall and then founding an elite restaurant.
The venture on a docked boat was a success. In 2001 Prigozhin personally served two guests who had stopped by for dinner: Russia’s new president, Putin, and Japan’s prime minister, Yoshiro Mori. Soon Prigozhin was doing the catering for Kremlin banquets and for Putin’s 2003 birthday party, earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef”.
On good terms with Russia’s elite, Prigozhin branched out. He won lucrative state contracts to supply food to Russian schoolchildren and to its soldiers. With money came an oligarch lifestyle: a palace in St Petersburg, a yacht, a private plane, a helipad.
It is Prigozhin’s activities on behalf of the state that have made him notorious. According to the US special counsel Robert Mueller, Prigozhin’s trolls working out of the Olgino area of St Petersburg interfered in the 2016 election. Prigozhin, senior employees and his company, Concord Catering, are all under US indictment.
Prigozhin is believed to be a funder of the Wagner group, a private military contractor. Hundreds of Russian mercenaries, some tied to Wagner, were reportedly killed in clashes with US forces during a doomed attempt to seize an oil refinery in Syria in February 2018. Other mercenaries have fought for Wagner in Ukraine.
Critics including the opposition leader Alexei Navalny have described Prigozhin’s rise as a parable of Russia under Putin. Prigozhin has grown rich because of his proximity to Russia’s forever ruler, Navalny alleges. He has nicknamed Prigozhin the “king of dislikes”.
Leaked documents paint a portrait of Prigozhin as a hyperactive businessman and micro-manager with a flair for logistics. As well as dispatching undercover political consultants to Africa, Prigozhin-linked companies have sent supplies of tea, coffee and pasta. These fuel the growing number of Russian personnel and military experts on the continent.
Prigozhin, 57, refuses to give interviews. He has denied that Wagner exists or that he ever ran a troll farm. Of the US indictment, he said last year: “I am not at all disappointed that I appear in this list. If they want to see the devil, let them.”<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/the-western-media-is-ignoring-a-powerful-uprising-where-citizens-are-resisting-tyranny-and-russian-interference/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/the-western-media-is-ignoring-a-powerful-uprising-where-citizens-are-resisting-tyranny-and-russian-interference/</a>AN 119The story of the world today is the rise of right-wing populism, or so we are told. It’s the story of Donald Trump, of Brexit, of rising nationalism in continental Europe — especially in the east — as well as almost all of the former Soviet Union. But stories can change quickly. Whatever happened to “The End of History”? Or the War on Terror? The Great Recession? Or the Arab Spring? Who knows what the story will be next? Perhaps it’s already being written in Sudan, with echoes of so many other stories folded into it.<div class="p1_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Almost eight years to the day after the Arab Spring began in Tunisia with the startling overthrow of the 23-year regime of President Ben Ali, the current Sudan uprising began in the city of Atbara, a railroad union stronghold. That was on Dec. 19, and protests quickly spread nationwide. A month later, Sudan’s 29-year ruler, President Omar al-Bashir — <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashirhttps:/www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">who has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court</a> — is barely clinging to power, while American media, not to mention the U.S. government, has largely ignored the entire situation.“All residents of Atbara are now on the streets,” one eyewitness, Adel Abdel-Latif, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66796" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told Sudan Tribune</a> last month as the uprising began. “He pointed out that the demonstrators chanted slogans such as ‘Peaceful, Peaceful against the Thieves,’ saying the police and army didn’t interfere to disperse or arrest the protestors,” the publication reported.<div class="p3_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The story we’re missing is historic, according to Jonathan Hutson, who helped expose mass human rights violations in Sudan from 2010 to 2014 — documenting 46 village burnings and locating eight apparent mass graves — as the architect of George Clooney’s <a href="https://www.satsentinel.org/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Satellite Sentinel Project</a>.<div class="p4_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“What we have is the Western media largely misunderstanding or ignoring a revolution in a Putin-aligned African country, ruled by an Islamic theocracy, where the resistance is committed to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion,”  Hutson told Salon. Reports of food riots vastly understate the seriousness of events, and Russian involvement with paramilitary troops (reportedly under the direction of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Yevgeny Prigozhin, aka “Putin’s chef”</a>) has failed to register as echoing the predatory pattern already seen in the Ukraine, Crimea and Syria.<div class="p5_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“News reporting on Sudan has finally begun to highlight the ongoing economic collapse of the past seven years,” veteran Sudan observer <a href="https://sudanreeves.org/2018/12/24/the-failure-of-international-news-reporting-on-sudans-economy-2011-2018/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Eric Reeves wrote on Dec. 24,</a> but even so “there is remarkable superficiality and failure to look with any historical depth at how the present catastrophe began. … Priorities in the national budget have been wildly skewed for decades toward the military and security services, with only very small amounts devoted to health, education, and the crucial agricultural sector. Arable land has been sold or leased for decades in order to raise cash for a kleptocratic regime.” In short, al-Bashir’s political affinity to Putin’s Russia are profound.<div class="p6_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As for the Sudanese people, it’s not that they’re imitating the Arab Spring — it’s really the other way around: Civil uprisings in Sudan have <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2014/10/20/50-years-on-remembering-sudans-october-revolution-by-willow-berridge/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">twice toppled dictatorships</a>, first in 1964 and again in 1985. “The popular uprising has become one of the political norms that Sudanese resort to in redefining their social contract with the state,” <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66944" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">noted Luka Kuol</a>, a Sudanese professor of security studies.<div class="p7_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sudan escaped the first wave of Arab Spring uprisings in part because the government learned from those previous examples: It exploited regional, racial, ethnic and religious divisions, broke the power of professional unions and keeping the army dispersed outside Khartoum, the capital city, among other measures. But the government’s continued kleptocratic misrule has pushed Sudan past the breaking point, and al-Bashir’s old tricks no longer seem to work.<div class="p8_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Atbara demonstrations spread quickly despite a sometimes violent response. “The numbers of peaceful demonstrators in Atbara are increasing dramatically and the city is in full civil disobedience,” the opposition youth group Sudan Change Now <a href="https://twitter.com/Sudanchangenow/status/1075362750279376897" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a> on Dec. 19, along with a 57-second video of a loud but peaceful march. Sudan Tribune reported that <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66800" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">eight people were killed</a> on the second day of protests. Barely a month later, the al-Bashir regime appears doomed. The more demonstrators have been killed, injured or arrested, the more the movement has swelled, and al-Bashir’s attempts to divide it along racial and ethnic lines have failed.<div class="p9_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an inspiring and informative overview, “<a href="https://500wordsmag.com/sudan-news/the-chants-of-sudan-uprising/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Chants of the Sudan Uprising</a>,” Wa’el Jubara writes about the regime’s “sick and naive divide-and-conquer attempt” to blame the protests “on one of the armed rebel movements in the West,” conflating them with “peaceful, unorganised (politically) citizens” from Darfur in the West, whom they arrested. “The next day, Sudanese people from all walks of life and origins went out again, calling out the regime on its poor racist tactics,” Jubara wrote. “They called out the failed conspiracy of Al Bashir and said, ‘يا عنصري مغرور كل البلد دارفور‘, loosely translated to ‘You [Al Bashir] are racist and arrogant, we are all Darfur.’”<div class="p10_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The current demonstrations are unprecedented, in terms of scale, persistence, intensity, and geographical reach,” Adil Babikir, a U.K.-based Sudanese translator, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66930" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote in Sudan Tribune</a> on Jan. 18. “The momentum is building up, with simultaneous rallies staged in many cities across the country. The revolutionary mood is at its peak. New patriotic songs are hitting the social media platforms every day. Some of these are originally folkloric wedding songs reworded with the themes of the revolution.”<div class="p11_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the midst of all this, on Dec. 31, Hutson posted a <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHutson/status/1079952769178632193" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">33-tweet thread</a> exposing the Russian presence in Sudan with photos and information provided by activists on the ground. This information on the “illegal” Russian incursion was information further <a href="https://twitter.com/Amjedfarid/status/1080900965941813253" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">developed and promoted by Sudan Change Now</a>, as well as <a href="https://citeam.org/are-ru-mercenaries-suppressing-the-sudan-protests/?lang=en" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">by the Russia-based Conflict Intelligence Team</a>.<div class="p12_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Russian forces in Sudan are apparently or probably there in the guise of Prigozhin’s paramilitary Wagner Group (aka PMC Wagner), which was <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/pages/sm0114.aspx" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2017</a> for its involvement in Ukraine. Prigozhin, the now-infamous Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg and two related firms he controls <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0312" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">were also sanctioned in March 2018</a> for their role in 2016 election interference on behalf of Donald Trump.<div class="p13_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“As police fired tear gas and live ammunition at peaceful demonstrators in Khartoum, wounding at least four people, Sudanese observers on the ground wondered about the significance of Russian military trucks spotted in the capital,” Hutson began.<div class="p14_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hutson initially stopped short of definitively identifying PMC Wagner. But the group’s presence in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa was already known, if not commonly discussed. In November, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Bloomberg reported</a> that Prigozhin was “already active in or moving into 10 countries that Russia’s military already has relationships with: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Madagascar, Angola, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic.”<div class="p15_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-journalists-editor-says-killed-for-investigating-wagner-group-2018-8" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Last summer</a>, three Russian journalists were killed while investigating Wagner in the Central African Republic on behalf of exiled Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky. A week after Hutson’s tweet-storm, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66883" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Sudan Times confirmed Wagner’s presence</a> in the current conflict, citing a source within Sudan’s security force.<div class="p16_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hutson noted that Wagner “guards Sudanese gold, uranium, and diamond mines, as well as atomic energy facilities. Russian media have reported that Wagner trains Sudanese armed forces.” He identified Wagner’s typical vehicle as “a light-brown, Ural-4320, all-wheel-drive, two-door cab, 6×6 truck in troop transport mode, similar to trucks used by the Russian military, and by Russian private military contractors.” (In a <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHutson/status/1083480882957205504" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">later thread</a>, he explained in detail how he identified the trucks.)<div class="p17_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hutson provided some background on Sudan’s Russia connection, noting that on Nov. 23, 2017, al-Bashir met with Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia. Reportedly “Bashir asked Putin to protect Sudan from ‘aggressive acts of the United States.’ In return, Bashir promised Putin that Sudan could serve as Russia’s ‘key to Africa.’”<div class="p18_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hutson also described some earlier activity in Sudan. “Radio Dabanga (<a href="https://twitter.com/Radiodabanga" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">@RadioDabanga</a>) reported in March 2018 that about 500 Russian armed forces appeared in the Um Dafug area of South Darfur, which borders on the Central African Republic.” At the same time, “across the border in CAR, the Wagner Group was defending mining interests.”<div class="p19_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Four months after that, the three Russian journalists working for Khodorkovsky were killed, amid disputed claims of who was responsible. Ten days after Hutson’s tweet, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/10/report-links-journalists-murder-africa-russian-mercenaries-investigating1/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Telegraph reported damning evidence that Wagner itself was responsible</a>, based on findings from <a href="https://www.khodorkovsky.com/dossier-center/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Khodorkovsky’s Dossier Center</a>, including cell phone records and other documents connecting the driver to Prigozhin. “The journalists were under the control of people from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s structures starting from the preparation stage,” according to the Dossier Center.<div class="p20_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hutson has speculated that “the relationships between Putin, Prigozhin, the Internet Research Agency, the Wagner Group and Trump” could help explain the U.S. government’s relative silence on the Sudan uprising. More recently, on Jan. 23, the State Department finally issued a three-paragraph <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2019/01/288533.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">statement of “concern,”</a> stating that “A new, more positive relationship between the United States and Sudan requires meaningful political reform and clear, sustained progress on respect for human rights.”<div class="p21_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In fairness, America’s hands-off attitude might not have much to do with Putin. Like al-Bashir and the Sudanese regime, the Russian president may simply be taking advantage of long-standing pernicious habits and attitudes. That’s the picture suggested by Justin Lynch at the Daily Beast, in a recent article asking“<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-is-sudans-genocidal-regime-a-cia-favorite" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Why is Sudan’s Genocidal Regime a CIA Favorite?</a>”:<div class="p22_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">Although Sudan has been <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-sponsors-sudan" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">listed</a> as a state sponsor of terror since 1993 and the U.S. has accused al-Bashir more than once of genocide for his government’s actions in Darfur, cooperation between the two countries has been close on particular issues that Washington sees as a priority, particularly the fight against terrorist jihadis.<div class="p23_28" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></blockquote>This remained true, Lynch reports, even after Sudan dramatically reduced its counterterrorism collaboration in 2015.<div class="p24_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">As one of the last acts of the Obama administration in January 2017, the United States began a five-track process to restore relations that depend on humanitarian access, stopping violence and counter-terrorism collaboration. That process has expanded under the Trump administration, and in late-October the United States entered a second re-engagement with Sudan.<div class="p25_28" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></blockquote>A few weeks later, the Sudan uprising began. And America has watched from the sidelines.<div class="p26_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For all the talk about how disruptive and anomalous Trump’s presidency is, and for all the justified concern about how compromised he might be by his Russian entanglements, the main impediment to America doing the right thing to support the people of Sudan may simply be short-sighted, sclerotic institutional continuity, just as it was during the Arab Spring.<div class="p27_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We are right to worry about the future of democracy at home. But the Sudan uprising should remind us that we live in a larger world that we have often carelessly misshaped with our misguided actions and misplaced fears, even as we have also helped shape it with our ideals. In his famous 1967 address “<a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Beyond Vietnam</a>,” explaining his opposition to the war, Martin Luther King Jr. said that “our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice.” The same could be said about the various threats facing us today — and that’s what the Sudan uprising is calling on us to do.==</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>