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What ties does he have exactly with the Russian president? “Complément d’Enquête” contacted Evguéni Prigojine on several occasions. The leader of the dreaded Wagner militia was kind enough to speak to a Western media. “Politely”, according to him, before a last answer… scathing.
The world has really discovered his face in 2022. With his powerful private militia that has eclipsed the Russian army and terrifies Europe, the “cook of Putin” has been “butchered” in Ukraine. In Africa, he is also conducting disinformation campaigns in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger… For a document released on June 15, 2023, “Complément d’Enquête” wanted to question Evguéni Prigojine on his links with Vladimir Poutine, on the crimes of war of which Wagner is accused, on his operations of influence throughout the world… Without answer on his part, the journalists revived him. On the phone, his personal assistant promises to pass on their request. But still nothing.
At the end of May, when his troops seized Bakhmout in Ukraine, the journalist Louis Milano-Dupont sent his press service a series of questions relating solely to his activities in Africa. Will he redeploy men on the continent? In which countries? In the Central African Republic, are its mercenaries responsible for the fire which destroyed the Mocaf brewery of the French group Castel three months earlier? The answer comes the same day, in the form of a voice message accompanied by a written translation in French. Prigozhin announces that he will continue “to develop all its projects” in Africa. “We have never been terrorists”, he defends himself.
“To discredit Wagner” is “to do evil”
If the boss of Wagner agreed to speak to Western media, the tone was quick to become threatening. Convinced that the document that the journalists of “Complément d’Enquête” are preparing aims to portray him as “a monster” and to “discredit Wagner” – SO “doing evil”according to him – he predicted to them during another conversation “that this evil will one day turn against them”.
But “Complément d’Enquête” had not finished with its questions. With his increasingly virulent diatribes against the Russian army and the political ambitions that some ascribe to him, isn’t Yevgeny Prigojine becoming cumbersome for the Kremlin? Asked again for an interview, he ends up putting an end to these exchanges in unequivocal terms… “I answered you politely, but the meaning of my answer was rather ‘Fuck off! And don’t ask me any more questions'”, he asserts, specifying that he will not answer any more.
Extract from “Prigojine, Poutine’s butcher”, a document to see in “Complément d’Enquête” on June 15, 2023.
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