Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is reported to have died in a plane crash aged 62, was a former hot-dog seller and ex-convict who went on to become a billionaire restaurateur and “global Kremlin action man” running the so-called Wagner Group, a shadowy army of mercenaries, on behalf of the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The death of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash, the latest Kremlin irritant neutralized in suspect circumstances, likely means the end of Russia’s use of mercenaries in its foreign policy.