The staggering wealth of “Prigozhi, the man who shocked Putin

The Wagner group's chief, Yevgeny Pigozin, was forced to leave while his mercenary company is breaking up, but apparently he has a lot of money to get back. The ruthless commander of the war who led an armed rebellion against Vladimir Putin over the weekend is estimated to be a billionaire who does not lack a large yacht and a private plane.

British officials acknowledge that the Wagner group's finances are the dark and unclear “”, but say Prigozhin is known to earn his money from suspicious contracts with government and natural resources. Understandably, Wagner Group robs diamonds, gold, oil, and gas from the countries in which they operate, as well as are paid directly by the almost dictatorial regimes. This has swollen Pigozin's wealth to extraordinary levels.

Some estimates place his personal wealth up to 2 billion pounds. Putin announced that it was only last year that Pigozin and Wagner Group had collected contracts worth 1.6 billion pounds from the Russian state. A raid at the Wagner Group headquarters in St Petersburg revealed 38 million dollars in US dollars and other foreign currency, along with a small amount of gold bars and false passports of the war commander.

Prigozin ) who's also on the FBI's most wanted list seems to be nothing less than “a gangster king”. He is accused of his hands being introduced into companies and corruption throughout Russia. Everything, from tape to construction and to oil and gas, is in Pigozin's wallet. He is even accused of running the notorious <x2-ferms of trolls” that spread propaganda in the West.

Also overseeing Wagner Group operations worldwide, a company accused of hitting prisoners with hangings, rape, mass murder and child murder. Thanks to the collection of money and confusion in the Kremlin's power corridors, his family is understood to have access to a great personal asset. It is said to have a fortune worth 7.5 million pounds, a yacht of 4.5 million pounds called “St Vitamin” and a private Hawker 800 of 3 million pounds.

He even boasts of his love for cars, possessing a precious 1975 Lincoln Continental. Pigazzin was declared “Person of the Year” of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in 2022. “Prigozy is a soldier of corruption. He fights and kills to install corruption. Wagner is nothing but an organised crime group sanctioned by the Russian government” ) O rapporteur said CCRP Drew Sullivan.

The commander of the war has been ordered to live his days in Russia's neighbouring puppet state, Belarus. He is currently being held at a three-star hotel with a budget of 50 pounds per night in the capital of Minsk. His mercenary group appears to be breaking up, with Russia ordering them to hand over heavy weapons and military equipment under the Kremlin agreement.

And while he was initially under investigation for “The FSB also appears to have closed the investigation into Pigozy. But with his blood - hungry empire falling apart, Prigozhi must have much to restore if the Kremlin allows him to keep it instead of confiscating his assets. It is also unclear what will happen to Prigozhi's family and whether they will join him in Belarus. Pgozyn has three children named Paulina, Veronica, and Pavel with his wife, Lyubov Valentinovana Prygozyna, who runs a chain of chocolate shops and a network of luxury baths.

The family is known to have traveled the world. Lyubov, 53, has photographs in Paris, while Paulina, 30, takes part in all of Europe's riding events. Polina, Pavel and Lyubov have all been sanctioned by Great Britain for their father's involvement in Putin's dirty war in Ukraine. Veronica, who turned 18 this year, is the only member of his close family who does not yet submit to British sanctions.

The family reportedly plays various “trol” within different Prigozhin businesses, reports FT. Pigozin's mother, Violet opened her art gallery in St Petersburg in 2017. But she insists she has no economic ties with her son and even won an appeal against EU-set sanctions.

Wagner's “Finances are dark and mechanisms used to finance group activities are dark. However, reports suggest that Prigozy has been able to use various income flows, including direct payments from host states; access to natural resources where the group has been deployed; and the Russian government's inflated contracts given to other Prigozhin businesses” The British Foreign Ministry says.

Establishing the ruling Prigoz among Moscow's elite made him turn from a small criminal into one of the most powerful people in the country, strong enough to challenge Vlad, as the whole world saw on Saturday. He was once known as Putin's “cook, after running an empire of restaurants and hotels that supplied official Kremlin institutions sometimes even by making the waitress himself for world leaders. His first business venture was as a hot dog salesman during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Both of them from St Petersburg, he met with then local bureaucratic, Vladimir Putin, while expanding his business relations with a casino. Based on the establishment of the ruling Putin himself, Pgozhin set himself up as one of Vlad's top friends and then received large contracts from the Russian state. He packed his pockets for a decade and a half before creating the Wagner Group merc company in 2014, which saw its real power rise.

Pigozin expanded the group of mercenaries worldwide, selling his services sometimes paying off in contacts for gold and diamond mines as well as sources such as oil and gas. The company expanded rapidly in Africa using fragile political situations. Getting richer and stronger, Prygozy denied any involvement with the Wagner Group until the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

Putin relied on the mercenary to help him with “special military operation”. And soon Prigozy was more than happy that she was in the limelight, pointing together with his fighter men and blowing madly into his channel on the ever more popular telegram. Growing up in fame and continuing to grow richer, he later entered a fight of words with the Kremlin for the lack of support he was receiving especially during the Battle of Bakhmut. With his ego and seemingly swollen faith in epic proportions, the noise of Prigozhi reached its climax when he ordered his mercenaries to march toward Moscow.

By occupying two cities and dropping a helicopter along the way, his forces went only 120 miles from the capital, and Russia happened for hours in total collapses. But then as suddenly as the rebellion began, Pgozyn announced that he had signed an agreement with the Kremlin. His men withdrew, and he apparently agreed to live his days in <x0mm” in Belarus. The seemingly strange episode has confirmed the gaps within the foundations of the Russian regime. And now there are more questions than answers to what will happen next to both Vlad and Prygozy. Putin told his troops today that they stopped a “civil war” while he held behind power.

The 70-year-old restaurant addressed a carefully selected crowd of generals and his soldiers in the closed square of the Kremlin Cathedral in Moscow. He insisted that rebel mercenaries “never had the support of” of the people despite pictures showing Wagner's troops meeting with cheering crowds in Rostov.

You have stopped a civil war” Putin told them. With tired sight, he was surrounded by soldiers as he spoke from behind a platform at the very safe Kremlin complex in the heart of Moscow. He addressed 2,500 army members, security forces and the National Guard, giving lessons on how Russia was saved. Vlad also insisted that the rebellion did not affect the heroic “war” of his army in Ukraine. Putin's fierce tone, charging for coup attempts, accusing the rebels of wanting Russia “to drown in blood” does not comply with the sentence for its leaders.

He seems to be desperately trying to regain his image of the strong man who has been shaken by rebellion. Prigozhin and Putin are said to have reached a “agreement” to end the rebellion. The terms of the agreement are not yet fully clear, but it seems to be seen the restoration of Prigozhin and Wagner Group in Belarus. Wagner forces, however, still appear to be recruiting new fighters. Pigozin and his men have been sentenced to the strongest words possible from the Kremlin, being described as traitors but at this stage, it seems that Russia is just letting them go.

Prygozy insists that if he were at the helm of the Ukrainian invasion, everything would have ended within a day “ ” ) instead of dragging on for 17 months. His 11-minute audio message, which was seen as proof of life after he first disappeared for nearly two days, also saw him again in an attempt to justify the rebellion. He insisted he was not trying to overthrow the government, but instead wanted to ensure the Wagner Group's survival. Putin in an advance video speech just hours after the Prigozy statements saw him vow he would send the Wagner rebels before “justice”.

Today, however, FSB has confirmed that it has dropped charges of treason against Prigozhi. The rebellion has shed light on Putin's fragility with the greatest challenge to his rule in 20 years and possibly Russia's biggest crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Western governments have avoided deep tests, but all seem to agree that rebellion has shown the weakness of Vlad's regime.

“Putin is destroying his country”, German Foreign Minister Annalena Backock said. Experts and analysts have said Putin appears to be weaker than ever, and the coup can only be the beginning of challenges for his leadership especially as the war in Ukraine continues. The Kremlin, however, retorted and dismissed the opinions of “althoughdo-specialists” while they tried to claim Putin was still in control of the situation. /The Sun, fit in Albanian LAPSI.al