As head of the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group, Prigozhin is a cog in Putin’s war against Ukraine. He’s also, inexplicably, a caterer
The name Wagner originally appeared in 2014, when Russia invaded eastern Ukraine, and Wagner mercenaries have since fought, and been accused of atrocities, in Syria and the Central African Republic. Last year, apremiered in Bangui, the capital of the CAR, depicting hired Russian soldiers performing various acts of heroism. A reporter for the“With the Support of Evgeny Prigozhin” in the CAR language of Sango above “a heart-shaped Russian flag.
Even as Prigozhin manages for-hire killers and produces movies, the catering business trucks on. Right now, anyone can go online and solicit Concord. They’ve catered weddings, campus openings, and “an exquisite reception in the interiors of the Imperial Palace.” Their services include “barbecues, corporate parties, animation stations,” the last of which appears to be an interactive, watch-the-chef-work type of experience..
The logic behind sanctioning Putin’s ultrarich inner circle is both punitive and practical. Theoretically, if Putin’s actions are fucking up the money of his friends, then Putin’s friends will talk him down. But sanctioning Prigozhin might be pointless. Because Prigozhin isn’t someone Putin listens to — he’s just the “chef,” someone Putin tasks with doing his dirtiest work.
As Margolin sees it, Prigozhin would “like to be part of [Putin’s] absolute inner circle but he’ll never be, because he’s not former security services,” namely the KGB, where Putin served and developed his longest-standing relationships, and its successor organization, the Federal Security Service. “If you came up in organized crime in the ’90s in St. Petersburg, that’s pretty good. That gives you some proximity, some respect. That possibly makes you useful. But you’re not quite one of them.
In this reading of the Kremlin’s inner workings, Prigozhin has become a willing executor of all kinds of wild shit in a quixotic hope to go beyond his origins and become truly, fully embraced. “This guy got started with a hot dog stand,” Margolin says. “He’s the ‘Originally, I thought of Prigozhin in terms of the intense bond that can arise between food provider and consumer — especially when said consumer is a paranoiac head of state like Putin.
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