A businessman close to the Russian presidency, Yevgeny Prigozhin, admitted on Monday that he founded the Wagner group in 2014 to fight in Ukraine, acknowledging his mercenaries’ involvement in conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.
Prigozhin had already been accused by several Western countries and Russian media of being the financier of the Wagner paramilitary group, whose members are said to operate in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Mozambique and the Central African Republic, among others.
In a post to media outlets from his company Concord, Prigozhin said he created the group to send qualified fighters to the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in 2014.
“It was then, on May 1, 2014, that a group of patriots was born, who took the name Wagner’s Battalion Tactical Group,” said Prigozhin, quoted by the French agency AFP.
The conflict in Donbass has been opposing separatist forces from Donetsk and Lugansk for eight years, with the support of Moscow and the Kiev authorities.
The war in Donbass broke out at the same time as Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
Days before Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24 this year, he recognized the self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The independent Russian press has denounced that the Wagner group — named after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer — is also involved in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“And now a confession (…), these guys, heroes, defended the Syrian people, other peoples from Arab countries, Africans and underprivileged Latin Americans, they became a pillar of our homeland,” said Prigozhin.
The paramilitary group is suspected of carrying out the “dirty work” of the Kremlin (Russian presidency) in various areas of operations, which Moscow has always denied.
The Kremlin has also always denied any ties to paramilitary groups.
He’s on the FBI’s Wanted List. He Is Suspected Of Favoring Trump’s Election With Disinformation Operations
Yevgeny Prigozhin, 61, is from St. Petersburg, as is the current Russian leader.
He was nicknamed “Putin’s cook” by the US agency AP because his restaurants and catering companies hosted dinners that Putin attended with foreign dignitaries.
Prigozhin is also suspected of involvement in social media disinformation operations, including to aid the election of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
For that reason, he is on the FBI’s Wanted List, the federal investigative agency of the United States Department of Justice.
“Prigozhin was the main financier of the Internet Investigation Agency (IRA) in St. Petersburg. He is alleged to have supervised and authorized political and electoral interference in the United States,” the FBI’s website reads.
The actions attributed to Prigozhin “were reportedly taken to attack a significant number of Americans with the aim of disrupting the United States’ political system, including the 2016 presidential election,” he adds.
The FBI is offering a $250,000 reward (more than €258,000 at current exchange rates) for information leading to Prigozhin’s arrest.
Source: DN
