WARLORD, tycoon, and now Putin's greatest enemy, Yevgeny Prigozhin has risen through the ranks to control Russia’s mercenary army and is now vowing to storm Moscow.
The once-elusive Prigozhin has become an endlessly vocal critic of Russia's military and Putin himself, culminating in a violent standoff between the two warmongers as "mutiny" rages in Russia.
At present, all eyes are on the lavish oligarch dressed in military battledress as he walks away from the battlefield in Ukraine to declare an "armed rebellion" against his motherland.
Following Prigozhin's orders the Wagner group have seized a Russian military HQ in Rostov-on-Don and possibly the city of Voronezh -vowing to take the fight to Moscow.
Putin has blasted the move as "treason" and "mutiny", calling it "a knife in the back of our people".
But who is the frighteningly-powerful figure staging a coup against Vlad?
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The man, dubbed "Putin's favourite chef" has furiously elbowed his way to a bigger seat at the Kremlin's table and experts have long predicted his eyes were set on the top job.
Almost foretelling the current events, Colonel Hamish de Bretton Gordon told The Sun Online last month: "Prigozhin seems to have the gloves off at the moment.
"And in an almost Roman-type way he has an army that could march into the Kremlin and take over."
A former gangster, his rise to power seems to have a lot to do with hefty ambition and a murky past conducted in the backrooms of the Kremlin as he rode the waves of Putin’s favour all the way to the top.
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Now one of Russia's most powerful men, he commands a private army of more than 50,000 men stationed in Ukraine alone, and has a fortune thought to be in millions if not billions.
The paid killer group he founded back in 2014 acts as a de facto militia in some of Ukraine's bloodiest battles and equals the strength of quarter of Russia's entire army.
As Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Prigozhin stepped out of the shadows to wage war on Ukraine with his private military outlet, taking the leading role in the bloody battle for Bakhmut.
Pictures reveal a life of extraordinary wealth spent on private jets, super-yachts and flash cars, and a decade-old past spent skulking in the background of the upper-most echelons of world politics.
A KREMLIN POWER BATTLE
Ever-reckless, Prigozhin has been ramping up his brazen attacks on senior Russian military leadership and more veiled threats on Putin himself.
Not long ago, Prigozhin openly raged against his former patron – appearing to call the 70-year-old "grandpa" and a "complete a**hole", before later denying he was talking about Vlad.
He then took full-credit for Russia's alleged capture of Bakhmut, ignoring the role of any Russian forces in the battle.
Openly defying the Russian propaganda machine, the warlord time and time again has exposed the country's issues on the battlefield.
This week, he claimed that Putin is being lied to by Russia's military top brass about "colossal" Russian battlefield failures in Ukraine.
He declared that Russia's defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, was not telling the despot about "the thousands of destroyed tanks and armoured vehicles" littered on the battlefield of Bakhmut.
He warned that Shiogu and the head of Russia's army, Valery Gerasimov, are downplaying the threat posed by Ukraine's counteroffensive.
"They are bringing total c**p to the president's desk, [it's] shameless," he said in a video message. "They don't let anyone there [in Bakhmut], they don't show anything precisely because there are colossal problems there."
THE RISE OF THE WARLORD
His ruthless rise to the top began in 1981 in a courtroom in Leningrad, now-St Petersburg.
Old criminal documents, obtained by the Russian news publication, Meduza, in 2021, revealed that Prigozhin was charged with robbery and assault and sent to the penal colonies of Soviet Russia.
As communism collapsed, he was freed after serving nine years. Hardened and opportunistic, he began flogging hot dogs on the streets of a crumbling St Petersburg.
This venture led to him opening a convenience store and eventually a chain of restaurants, whilst he dipped his hands in the organised crime ravaging the city.
By 1996, Prigozhin was running a hugely successful restaurant business that one fateful day Putin would dine at – earning the nickname “Putin’s chef”.
Soon after meeting President Putin in 2001, Prigozhin’s catering company began receiving lucrative state contracts to feed Russia’s schools and military.
It would turn out to be a billion ruble friendship – one of the many perks of proximity to Putin.
As his wealth amassed, so did his lavish lifestyle. He partied hard, bought a 121-foot yacht and bought property worth £105million.
When he wasn't travelling in a private jet, he was personally organising Putin’s birthday parties.
Chilling footage exposes Prigozhin as an ominous figure in the background of countless state functions dating back to the early 2000s.
Pictures show him serving George W. Bush, lurking in the background of a dinner between G8 leaders including Tony Blair, and even bringing his benefactor Putin a dinner.
Prigozhin’s lengthy CV also includes allegedly meddling in the US 2016 elections by bankrolling Russian propaganda-pumping troll farms.
In 2018, the US Justice Department indicted him for his role in financing the troll factories, landing him on the FBI’s “most wanted” list.
In response, the oligarch said: “I am not upset at all I landed up on that list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him,” according to Russian state news agency Ria Novosti.
The once publicly-shy Prigozhin also admitted last November to meddling in Western elections.
“We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere," he declared.
For decades, Priogozhin was kept under the rug – not allowed to hold official positions so that he could carry out the Kremlin’s more criminal deeds.
The open-source detectives behind Bellingcat, called him “the Renaissance man of deniable Russian black ops”.
The war in Ukraine changed all of that. "He came from the shadows to lay down his claims," Dr Huseyn Aliyev, an expert on Russia and the conflict in Ukraine told The Sun Online.
“Prigozhin is one of the typical Putin-era power brokers," he said, adding he is “one of the few survivors of the upper echelons of Putin’s inner circle”.
“He had pushed himself to the front and proved himself capable of pushing forward with Russia’s offensive just as Putin is disillusioned by his generals.”
And yet, Prigozhin’s long play for power has been obvious if not risky.
“He has been moving up the ranks by criticising senior generals and building up his own reputation,” said Aliyev.
Bill Browder, an investor and enemy of Putin's, told The Sun Online last month that Prigozhin "would seize power, he's not a guy who would respect power."
He added: "Putin is a dictator. Prigozhin is carving his place into the Putin regime. It's remarkable they allow him to say this stuff against Putin. He's defying everything."
His defiance has now reached new levels as Wagner groups storm two Russian cities and Putin demands his arrest.
WAGNER EMPIRE
The haunting black insignia of his mercenary army is now well-known as its forces continue to commit atrocities across Ukraine.
The old Putin ally had been cutting his teeth with the Wagner Group first in Crimea in 2014 and then in murky proxy wars throughout Africa and the Middle East, collecting accusations of war crimes and gross human rights abuses from the UN.
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Damning messages and photos have recently shown the chilling reach of the Wagner Group – and their terrifying ambitions for a new Russian empire.
Encrypted channels on messaging app Telegram supported accusations that Wagner has been active in Africa and Asia – and hints they could be operating in Asia and Latin America.
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