Yevgeny Prigozhin

Yevgeny Prigozhin was a Russian oligarch and leader of the Wagner private military company. He was a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin until he launched a rebellion in June 2023. Prigozhin was sometimes referred to as "Putin's chef" because he owned restaurants and catering businesses that provided services to the Kremlin. Once a convict in the Soviet Union, Prigozhin controlled a network of influential companies whose operations, according to a 2022 investigation, were "tightly integrated with Russia's Defence Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU".