Prigozhin may be gone but his grim work lives on

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ferocious shadow army changed the course of Russian history. Few narratives have been as enigmatic as the story of how a convicted criminal turned catering magnate built the Wagner group into a brand to be reckoned with across the globe. But the plane crash that killed Prigozhin and nine others this week is proof positive that the more undeniable the Wagner group’s unhinged brutality became, the more president Vladimir Putin viewed Prigozhin as a liability. Even before founding his paramilitary cartel in 2014, Prigozhin’s career was intertwined with Kremlin intrigue and subterfuge. After his interference in the 2016 US presidential election became known, his name conjured images of clandestine operations, covert influence campaigns and the blurred lines between the Russian state and Putin’s personalised politics.