Question 1

Who is Yevgeniy Prigozhin?

Accepted Answer

Prigozhin, who was 62 years old when he died, was a Russian oligarch who emerged from the same wealthy and powerful circles as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, Prigozhin spent 12 years in prison for a 1981 conviction on charges of robbery and fraud. After his release, Prigozhin built his fortune as a private catering magnate by growing a hot dog stand and fast-food business into a well-connected catering firm that held lucrative contracts, including feeding the Russian military. Prigozhin’s ties to the Russian president earned him the nickname “Putin’s chef.” Before Russia’s war in Ukraine, Americans may have been most likely to recognize Prigozhin as the financier of the Internet Research Agency — a Russian “troll farm” that the Justice Department indicted in 2018 for interfering with the United States’ 2016 presidential election by weaponizing social media. (The case was later dropped.)

Question 2

How did Prigozhin come to lead the Wagner Group?

Accepted Answer

Prigozhin said he founded the Wagner Group — a network of several organizations that provide military contractors — to help Russian forces annex Crimea in 2014 and support pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. “I flew to one of the training grounds and did it myself. I myself cleaned the old weapons, figured out the bulletproof vests, and found specialists who could help me with this,” he said. “From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later acquired the name … ‘Wagner.’” The group was primarily active in Syria and parts of Africa before taking on a substantial role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. As Wagner’s leader, Prigozhin cultivated a reputation for being foul-mouthed, ruthless and brutal in combat. His company has been accused of committing war crimes, including rape, execution and child abduction.

Question 3

How did Prigozhin come into conflict with Russia’s military leadership?

Accepted Answer

With Prigozhin’s growing power came a willingness to criticize state leaders — which Putin largely tolerated while Russia relied heavily on Wagner fighters in Ukraine. Prigozhin came into increasing conflict with Russia’s military leadership over the course of the fight to capture the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. He repeatedly slammed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, for not supplying his forces with enough ammunition and for failing to conduct the war effectively, according to The Washington Post. “My people are dying in heaps,” he said in February.

Question 4

What happened with Prigozhin’s mutiny?

Accepted Answer

Tensions between the Wagner boss and Russia’s military brass reached a climax in June. Prigozhin accused Russian forces of conducting a strike on a Wagner camp in Ukraine. The Defense Ministry denied carrying out the attack. Prigozhin called for Russians to join Wagner’s “march of justice” against Shoigu and Gerasimov, also accusing the pair of lying about the war in Ukraine and undercounting casualties. “This is not a military coup, but a march of justice,” Prigozhin declared. His mercenary fighters briefly occupied a military headquarters in southern Russia and began to march toward the capital. Prigozhin’s challenge to the Russian Defense Ministry — and by proxy, to Putin — threw Moscow into an unexpected crisis that threatened to undermine Putin’s war effort in Ukraine. Putin initially accused Prigozhin of mounting an insurrection against state military forces. But under a deal that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed credit for, Prigozhin agreed to call off the mutiny in exchange for pardons and the ability to relocate his fighters to Belarus.

Question 5

What happened to Prigozhin after the mutiny?

Accepted Answer

Afterward, Prigozhin largely disappeared from the public eye. He was spotted in his hometown of St. Petersburg attending a Russia-Africa summit. Separately, a blurry video purported to show him instructing his troops in their new base of Belarus. On Monday, Telegram accounts affiliated with the Wagner Group posted his first video address since the June mutiny, in which he indicated that he would be refocusing his efforts on Africa. Two days later, he was dead. Miriam Berger and Adam Taylor contributed to this report.

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