Russian billionaire and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin attends a meeting with foreign investors at Konstantin Palace on June 16, 2016 in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin is waging his own war in eastern Ukraine, an often crude and increasingly vocal presence in Moscow’s faltering military campaign.
He portrays himself and his band of Wagner mercenaries as true patriots, in contrast to what he ridicules as the corrupt and incompetent military hierarchy. The language gets coarser and the stakes higher.
In the past few weeks, Prigozhin has been seen near the front lines in the occupied eastern region of Donetsk, delivering oranges to troops or grimly sifting through body bags and communicating with his fighters in nondescript and sometimes crude language.
On Saturday, he posted a video claiming he had just visited his troops in the brutally contested town of Soledar, praising his forces for what he said was the best fighting prowess in the world.
He rarely misses an opportunity to hang out at the restaurant. Somewhere in Donetsk earlier this month, Prigozhin told his fighters: “Once we defeat our internal bureaucracy and corruption, then we will defeat the Ukrainians and NATO.”
For Prigozhin, the chief bureaucrat he has in mind is Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The two appear to have fallen out over lucrative military contracts given and then taken by Prigogine’s Concord Group, as well as Wagner’s controversial role in Syria.
Credit skirmish at Soledar: Prigogine said on Friday that “extremely” his troops had made alleged gains around Soledar in recent days.
In a recorded conversation with his fighters, Prigozhin asked provocatively: “Besides PMK Wagner, who else is here?”
“No other!” – they answered.
Ukrainian forces continue to deny that Soledar has fallen, and even Prigozhin has admitted that fighting there continues.
Nonetheless, the mercenary leader’s ambitions have not gone unnoticed in Washington, DC.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper told a briefing on Friday: “In the recent past, we have seen the Wagner advance at a faster rate than any other unit in the Russian military.”
Read more analysis of Prigogine’s role in the war here.
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