Who is Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin?

LONDON - Here are some key facts about Mr Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenary force, who the country’s civil aviation authority said was

on the passenger list of a plane that crashed

north of Moscow on Thursday.

The 62-year-old soared in prominence after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, where his fighters – including

thousands of convicts

he recruited from prison – led the

Russian assault on the city of Bakhmut

in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.

He used social media to trumpet Wagner’s successes and wage a feud with the military establishment,

accusing it of incompetence and even treason.

In June,

he led a mutiny

in which Wagner fighters took control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and shot down a number of military helicopters, killing their pilots, as they advanced towards Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called it an act of treachery that would be met with a harsh response.

The

revolt was defused

in a deal where the Kremlin said that in order to avert bloodshed, Mr Prigozhin and some of his

fighters would leave for Belarus

and a criminal case against him for armed mutiny would be dropped.

Confusion surrounded the implementation of the deal and the future of Mr Prigozhin. The Kremlin said he

attended a meeting with Mr Putin

five days after the mutiny.

On July 5, state television said an investigation against him was still being pursued, and broadcast footage showing cash, passports, weapons and other items it said were seized in a raid on one of his properties.

But in late July, he was photographed in St Petersburg while a Russia-Africa summit was taking place in the city. This week, he appeared in a video which he suggested was shot in Africa, where Wagner has operations in several countries.

Born in St Petersburg on June 1, 1961, Mr Prigozhin spent nine years in Soviet prisons for crimes including robbery and fraud.

Released in 1990 amid the Soviet Union’s death throes, he launched a career as a caterer and restaurateur in his home town. He is believed to have met Mr Putin, then a top aide to St Petersburg’s mayor, at this time.

Leveraging political connections, he was awarded major state contracts, becoming known as “Putin’s chef” after catering for Kremlin events. More recently, he joked that “Putin’s butcher” would be more appropriate.

In 2014, he founded Wagner, a private military company whose fighters have been deployed in support of Moscow’s allies in countries including Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic. The United States has sanctioned it and

accused it of atrocities, which Mr Prigozhin denied.

He has acknowledged that

he founded and financed the Internet Research Agency, a company Washington says is a “troll farm”

which meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. Last November, he said he had interfered in US elections and would do so again. REUTERS