Putin's Chef or Successor? Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russia Oligarch, Leading a 'Brutal' Fight in Ukraine

A year since Russia’s war began in Ukraine, the country struggles to make advances east into Ukrainian territory. The Russian forces have been trying for the past six months to capture Bakhmut.

However, after long and fierce fighting, Kremlin’s forces are gaining ground, slowly but steadily. Moscow has ramped up efforts to score its first significant victory after months of setbacks, while Kyiv is determined to hold its ground.

Though the battle for Bakhmut has been long, bloody and futile, but one person has emerged from the shadows to become a high-profile figure in the war.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, boss of the Russian mercenary Wagner group, has ensured that “fierce” fighting unfolds on “every street, every house, every stairwell”.

Providing crucial mercenaries

Wagner is leading the offensive in Bakhmut, which has seen deadly fighting for seven months. Wagner mercenaries, many recruited from prisons in Russia, have played a large role in the Ukraine war in Ukraine, especially in the last few months when the war has proved costly for the Russians.

Prigozhin has been accused of recruiting prisoners and promising amnesty in return if they survive the war for six months.

Recently, Prigozhin said he was on a fighter jet that had bombed Bakhmut. In a video on social media, Prigozhin appeared inside a plane flying in darkness, wearing a helmet and a pilot mask.

His mercenaries have captured the town of Soledar, near Bakhmut – the city that has endured months of combat and bombardments and is known to both sides as the “meat grinder”. The private fighting force has several times claimed battlefield victories ahead of Russia’s army.

Rising through Ranks

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman and an oligarch, is considered close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and known as “Putin’s chef”. Currently, his Wagner group has about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine.

He founded the Wagner Group around 2014 and since then he has become a major player in Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.

Before the Ukraine was began in February last year, Prigozhin’s Wagner group had a reputation for summary murders, rape and extreme violence.

According to Leonid Volkov, a close aide of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Prigozhin is “the most dangerous criminal in Putin’s entourage”.

From taking military contracts to setting up private army, Prigozhin has come a long way and has also earned him powerful rivals.

Prigozhin’s popularity in Russia hasn’t got unnoticed in the west. The United States formally labelled the Wagner Group a “transnational criminal organization” and the European Union has accused it of human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial killings in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Mozambique.

Putin’s Chef or Challenger?

With 50,000 members operating in Ukraine alone and someone with real political influence in Russian ranks; Prigozhin is sometimes touted as a successor to Putin.

While recruiting prisoners for fighting on the Ukrainian front, Prigozhin defied Russian law, which doesn’t allow prisoners to be released in exchange for military service. However, the doors of government bureaucracy hardly shut before Prigozhin, which also suggests his influence in Russian military chambers.

In one of the videos, the Wagner chief addresses the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky from the cockpit of a Su-24 fighter-bomber, challenging him to a duel in the skies. The move suggests that he not only considers himself a peer of Zelensky, but has little regard for diplomatic protocol in international relations, where only a head of state should address his or her counterpart directly.

At multiple times, he has openly criticised and challenged state officials, including top generals. His Wagner group has also openly contradicted the ministry of defence claiming responsibility for recent Russian gains in Donbas.

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