Yevgeny Prigozhin Becomes a Player in Russia After Years in the Shadows

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin quietly profited from his personal relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, winning lucrative catering and construction contracts with the Russian government while building a mercenary force known as Wagner.

After dumping fighters into Ukraine, swelling his ranks with prisoner recruits, Mr. Prigozhin emerged as a public power player, using social media to turn tough and brutal talk into his personal brand.

In a scorching video posted on social media, Mr. Prigozhin threatened to pull the fighters next week out of Bakhmut, the embattled city where he has thrown thousands of prisoners into the Ukrainian defense maw, taking extraordinary casualties in a stubborn effort to wear down. down the other side.

Short of ammunition, Mr. Prigozhin delivered his ultimatum after walking among rows of bodies he claimed were Wagner fighters killed in the battle of Bakhmut. He named Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, and General Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the military general staff, as responsible for his death.

Mr Prigozhin, a businessman known as “Putin’s chef” because of his catering contracts with the Kremlin and the Russian military, has complained of a shortage of ammunition and threatened to leave the city earlier, but he has not given a date. It is unclear if he will follow through this time.

Spouting vulgarities, disregarding the law and showing no loyalty to anyone but Mr. Putin, Mr. Prigozhin has become a symbol of wartime Russia: ruthless, shameless and lawless. Mr. Prigozhin’s attention is particularly noteworthy because he admitted only last fall that he had founded Wagner.

But there were obstacles to Mr. Prigozhin’s rise. He faced public blowback in St. Louis. Petersburg, his home base, as he tries to control the politics of the city, the second largest in Russia. And they have been dogged by open questions and criticism in Moscow, where analysts doubt that the recruitment of prisoners and the endorsement of extrajudicial executions have broad appeal.

Mr Prigozhin jumped into the fray by expanding Wagner’s presence in Ukraine after the Kremlin’s initial attempt to seize Kyiv, the capital, failed early last year. “Private military companies” at the time were mostly active in Syria and Africa, where they operated both on behalf of the Russian government and in the service of Mr. Prigozhin’s own business interests.