Before Vladimir Putin launched his illegal war on Ukraine, the Russian-funded paramilitary Wagner Group was an infamous, shadowy tool of Moscow’s foreign policy, advancing its objectives in the Middle East and Africa. After Putin’s February 2022 invasion, the private miliary company led by Putin’s former chef, Yevgeny Prigozhin became a critical cog of the Russian military’s war effort. But as cracks emerged across Russian society and within the elite over the war, Prigozhin has been one of the most outspoken critics, alienating his adversaries in Russia’s defense ministry. Eventually, Putin sided with Priogzhin’s opponents ordering Wagner to be officially subsumed within Ministry of Defense.
Things are turning more and more sour between Yevgeny Prigohzin, head of the mercenary Russian outfit Wagner Group, and his one-time patron in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin. Prigohzin, who can date his economic rise in Russia to the state of oligarch to the time he served as “Putin’s chef,” has n.