Guardian journalist Shaun Walker talks about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the tough-talking convict-turned-businessman who recruits soldiers from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine.
It's been one year since the Russian
"[Prigozhin] spent his whole 20s pretty much in jail. He emerges just before his 30th birthday into this rapidly changing country [in] the very last death throes of the Soviet Union," Walker says."He comes out of prison and he starts off selling hotdogs. ... But very quickly, he moves on to bigger things."Among Prigozhin's many business ventures was a catering service that handled high-profile occasions for the Russian president.
Walker reports that Prigozhin has become a wealthy man and an increasingly visible political actor within Russia, clashing publicly with Russian military leaders. With Putin's blessing, the Wagner Group has recruited inmates from Russian prisons to fight in the war in Ukraine — promising a pardon if they survive six months on the battlefield.
The Wagner Group forces have suffered high casualty rates in the war and have been accused of atrocities against civilians.that about 40,000 inmates have joined the Russian forces — roughly 10% of the country's prison population."It's just so out of the realms of fantasy that this former convict is going to fly around prisons in his helicopter and offer people salvation for fighting for him at the front, and then lead these battalions of prisoners to their almost certain death. ...
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