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https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/prigozhin-meets-his-maker-payback-time-as-wagner-group-s-leadership-decapitated...
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The Grey Zone Telegram channel, which is linked to the mercenary group, reported
that “a hero of Russia and true patriot . . . died as a result of the actions of
traitors to Russia”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQAUj914h0

Julia Ioffe, a Russian-born American journalist who has closely followed his
chequered career, says that when CIA Director Bill Burns was recently asked why
Prigozhin was still alive, he said the mercenary leader was not out of the woods
yet because, “Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback”.

On Wednesday, nine people reportedly died alongside him in the crash including
the Wagner founder, Dimitry Utkin, who had named the organisation after his call
sign, Wagner, who was also Adolf Hitler’s favourite composer, and other members
of the high command.

Even in the very slim chance that it was poor piloting skills or a technical
fault that caused the crash, the Wagner leadership has been effectively
decapitated.

The company’s operations in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine are likely to be
absorbed into other agencies of the Russian state or closed down.

At the same time, there has been an apparent purge of Prigozhin’s allies in the
military.

Prigozhin’s ally General Sergei Surovikin, the commander of the Russian
aerospace forces, has been sacked.

However, Natasha Dukhan, senior investigator for The Sentry which did a major
investigative report on Wagner Group titled “Architects of Terror”, warned that
“the Kremlin’s strategy to bring the African continent further into its orbit of
power and exploitation remains”.

UNIMAGINABLE BRUTALITY

Dukhan warned that the international community must not take its eyes off this
entity that “utilises torture, mass rape, criminality and overwhelming terror
for the purpose of domination”.

[caption id="attachment_1818947" align="alignnone" width="720"]

This frame grab taken from a video on the Telegram account of razgruzka_vagnera
on 22 August 2023, shows the leader of Russia's Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny
Prigozhin as he addresses the camera at an undisclosed location. - The leader of
Russia's Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video published on
22 August 2023, that his group was making Africa "freer" and suggested he was on
the continent. (Photo: Handout / Telegram / @ razgruzka_vagnera)[/caption]

Prigozhin was the central pillar and the voice of the organisation. He built
Wagner into a multi-purpose enterprise: part mercenary army, part Russian
military intelligence front, part mining and business empire, and part
propaganda, dirty tricks and cybercrime operation.

Wagner became known for its unimaginable brutality. It filmed, and released on
social media, one of its own members being bludgeoned to death with a
sledgehammer.

The organisation participated in atrocities in the Central African Republic and
Mali. In March 2022 Wagner, along with Malian government forces, slaughtered
about 500 residents of the village of Moura, including children as young as five
years old.

After the march on Moscow, Putin admitted what had long been denied – that
Wagner was an arm of the Russian government and had received tens of billions of
roubles in public money since its inception.

“From the Ministry of Defence, from the state budget, we fully financed this
group,” Putin said.

PETTY THIEF AND KILLER

Prigozhin began his working life as a petty thief in the Soviet Union, burgling
apartments in Leningrad. He was jailed for 12 years in 1981 for assaulting a
woman and robbing her of her fur coat, earrings and boots.

He was released in 1990, at first setting up a hot dog stand and then opening
several restaurants in St Petersburg which were hangouts for mobsters and
oligarchs – and where presumably he first came to meet Putin and became known as
Putin’s chef. Putin was to celebrate his birthday at Prigozhin’s boat
restaurant.

He was like a Joe Pesci character out of the movie Goodfellas, the charm and the
smiles disguising his true nature as a killer.

Through his connection with Putin, Prigozhin won lucrative catering contracts
with the Russian army and the education department. By 2014, Wagner forces were
engaged in assisting separatists in the war in Eastern Ukraine, before moving to
fight alongside the Russian army in Syria.

DIRTY TRICKS

It was as a propagandist and connoisseur of dirty tricks that Prigozhin must
have endeared himself most to Putin.

Prigozhin set up the Internet Research Agency (IRA) which employed hundreds of
bloggers and posters to swamp global social media with general hatred as well as
pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

During the 2016 US election, his troll farm created thousands of fake social
media accounts that reached millions of Americans, spreading disinformation
about the Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton, focusing on issues that
divided the Democratic Party and helping elect Donald Trump.

Prigozhin and 13 others were indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller – and
Prigozhin later bragged about his role in assisting Trump on behalf of the
Russian state.

He soon moved on to Africa where the IRA launched social media disinformation
campaigns in several countries including Sudan and Madagascar, and soon Wagner
had boots on the ground in French-speaking West and Central Africa where the
organisation had some of its greatest successes.

But under Prigozhin, the menace that Wagner posed was sometimes less than the
reality on the ground.

AFRICAN FOOTPRINT

Wagner’s footprint in Africa remains limited to the Central African Republic,
where it literally controls the government, and Mali, where it is assisting the
military junta in fighting insurgents – not very successfully.

There are Wagner troops in Eastern Libya and gold mining operations in Sudan
operating from areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces. They have offices
in other countries but no apparent boots on the ground.

Prigozhin’s biggest impact came last year in Ukraine when he recruited tens of
thousands of prisoners to join Wagner and bolster the flagging Russian war
effort in Ukraine. An estimated 20,000 Wagner troops were reported killed in the
battle for Bakhmut alone.

https://youtu.be/zHFuD4irXto?si=34QcTsPVyn1XlLUU

As his role within the Russian forces seemed to grow increasingly central,
Prigozhin became more and more voluble, with frequent appearances on social
media where he pitched himself as a man of the people.

As his ambition seemed to soar, he clashed with the military high command while
recruiting his own loyalists in key positions. Leaked US intelligence documents
claimed that he had made contact with Ukrainian forces and was offering them a
separate deal.

Then came the 23 June 20023 march on Moscow and Putin’s warning that he would
punish the traitor Prigozhin.

But nothing happened, even after Wagner shot down army planes and helicopters,
killing 13 Russian servicemen.

For two months there has been an air of unreality as Prigozhin had gradually
started to wind his way back on to social media. Early this week he claimed to
be speaking from somewhere in Africa where he said he was working to make
“Africa even more free”.

Little did he know those words would come shockingly true within days. Just not
in the way he expected. DM

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Rudy Giuliani, who served as ex-President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, turned
himself over to authorities on Wednesday in the Georgia election case.

The former top federal prosecutor and New York mayor walked in to an Atlanta
jail shortly after his release bond was set at $150,000 (€138,027), next only to
Trump's at $200,000 (€184,000).

Giuliani was indicted last week along with Trump and 17 others for conspiring to
overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in the southeastern state
of Georgia.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said they participated in a
wide-ranging conspiracy to subvert the will of the voters after Trump lost to
Joe Biden in November 2020 presidential elections.

GIULIANI SAYS INDICTMENT AN ATTACK ON 'AMERICAN PEOPLE'

Outside the Fulton County Jail on Wednesday afternoon, Giuliani laughed when
asked if he regretted allying himself with Trump.

"I am very, very honored to be involved in this case because this case is a
fight for our way of life," Giuliani told reporters.

"It's an attack on not just me, not just President Trump," he said, adding,
"This is an attack on the American people."

TRUMP TO ALSO GIVE HIMSELF UP

Other high-profile defendants also surrendered Wednesday, including Jenna Ellis,
a former Trump campaign lawyer, and Sidney Powell, another lawyer accused of
making false statements about the election in Georgia among other things.

Georgia was one of several key states Trump lost by slim margins, prompting the
Republican and his allies to proclaim, without evidence, that the election was
rigged in favor of his democratic rival Joe Biden.

Trump, the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, has
said he plans to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday.

rm/jsi (Reuters, AP)

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