My new piece on Evgeny Prigozhin, "Putin's Cook," history of mafia state, Putin's inner circle, "wild 90s," PMC Wagner in Syria and more. A short summary in the thread. 👇 medium.com/@ZarinaZabrisk…
1. Threatening opposition; murdering journalists are signature tactics of Putin's government. Prigozhin's associates reportedly murdered an anti-Putin blogger by injecting an unknown substance; beat up a blogger after he had shared a Le Monde’s caricature of Putin, and more. ☝️
2. Silencing investigations include such moves as “leaving basket containing a severed ram’s head and red carnations” at the office of Novaya Gazeta with note to the chief editor and the journalist working on the article."
3. Why do we care? The US needs to pay attention to Prigozhin’s business, because it has interfered in the US elections 2016 & because its attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the indictment with the court on which Judge Kavanaugh currently sits citing him 9 times...
3.1. ...after this motion, Trump announced that he selected Kavanaugh to become an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States filling the vacancy left by the retirement Kennedy.
4. Prigozhin is a habitual offender sentenced to 2.5 yrs of probation for theft and 13 yrs of hard labor for theft, fraud, the involvement of a minor in criminal activities (prostitution), and robbery. His crimes include an attempt to strangle a young woman to remove her earrings
5. Prigozhin managed a gambling business in St. Petersburg in the 1990s at the time when Putin was the chairman of the casino and gambling supervisory council of the city. Licenses for gambling activities were issued on the proposal of the Council headed by Putin.
6. In the 90s, he was involved with the second most influential gang in St. Petersburg.
7. Artyom Kruglov, the editor of Putinism blog, believes that Prigozhin got introduced to Putin by his security guards in the early 2000s and eventually became the GRU frontman and a money purse behind the “active measures.”
8. One of these security guards, Roman Tsepov, died in 2004, allegedly after drinking tea poisoned by polonium-210, two years before Alexander Litvinenko.
9. The other security guard became Putin’s sparring partner in boxing and judo and is currently is the Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardiya) and a member of the Security Council of Russia.
10. In 2010, Prigozhin’s opened his first food factory complex, the Concord Group, with Putin in attendance. The state-owned Russian bank Vnesheconombank provided a credit. Putin is on the supervisory board of Vnesheconombank.
11. In 2008 and 2012, Prigozhin’s company provided catering for inauguration parties for Medvedev and Putin, accordingly. During these years, his companies also have won 90% bids of the Ministry of Defense, including food supplies and maintenance.
12. In 2012, Prigozhin got involved in a “troll factory” in St. Petersburg. In 2014, he added another propaganda agency “Federal Agency of News” (FAN.) 
13. In 2014, Prigozhin moved from the information warfare to the traditional combat operations. Journalists traced the connections between his businesses and the Wagner mercenary group in East Ukraine and Syria.
14. According to the Russian Criminal Code, private military companies are illegal in Russia. The leaders of Wagner, the PMC, associated with Prigozhin, attended a Kremlin banquet and were awarded the Order of Courage for military service.
15. PMC Wagner is called after the code name of its leader Dmitry Utkin, inspired by German composer Richard Wagner, associated with the Third Reich. According to some reports, Wagner has a swastika tattooed on his shoulder.
15.1. Utkin and at least few of mercenaries are also known to be “rodnovery,” a neo-pagan “Slavonic” faith based on a racist ideology that incorporates symbols and rhetorics close to Nazism and Bolshevism. This type of paganism is known to be promoted by the KGB in the 90s.
15.2. Various publications wrote about several other neo-Nazis mercenaries of Wagner group.
16. Until 2013, Utkin served as a commander of a Special Forces Detachment of the Russian Military Intelligence, and then for Moran Security Group, a private security company providing security services for ships sailing in the area frequented by pirates.
17. The president of this company Vyacheslav Kalashnikov is a Putin’s KGB colleague and an assistant of Alexander Torshin, a Vice-Speaker of The Federation Council. Torshin, is one of the alleged leaders of Tambov organized crime group and is connected to Maria Butina.
18. Torshin and Butina are known to infiltrate the NRA and seek a close relationship with high-level conservative Republicans. Butina was indicted and arrested by the U. S. Department of Justice and charged for espionage.
19. According to a memorandum, signed by the Syrian government (with a participation of the Ministry of Energy of Russia,) 25% of all the gas and oil produced in the territory freed from ISIS is transferred to a commercial company associated with Prigozhin’s business.
20. Thus, Prigozhin’s empire expanded, adding military and oil and gas industry to the existing catering, maintenance and constructions industrial complexes.
21. Putin compared Prigozhin to #GeorgeSoros, he “intervenes in things all over the world.” “But the State Department will tell you that it has nothing to do with that, that this is the personal business of Mr. Soros… Well for us, this is the personal business of Mr. Prigozhin”
22. There is no such thing as “personal business” in Russia. No Russian oligarch is the sole owner of his fortune. They pay to the Kremlin for the right to operate and make money. Putin and the FSB provide krysha for all Russian oligarchs.
23. The compensation comes in form of monetized kickback or services supporting the regime. This is why a small crook and a restauranteur, Prigozhin serves the Kremlin by investing into “troll factories” that spread pro-Kremlin propaganda in Russia & interfere in the US elections
24. All countries have mafia — but Russian mafia has a country, a joke goes. One can only hope that it does not get the world. Read more: medium.com/@ZarinaZabrisk…
☝️Prigozhin, Vagner (Wagner), and the history of mafia in Russia, "wild 90s." @WendySiegelman @grantstern @patrickLSimpson @dcpoll @peterjukes @J_amesp @AlexandraChalup @ActMeasuresDoc @Agenthades1 @anders_aslund @velvetblade @craigunger @kate_hammer @annmarlowe @kelly2277
☝️Prigozhin, Vagner (Wagner), and the history of mafia in Russia, "wild 90s." @Lazulioness @ManchuCandidate @counterchekist @DelvingHaylee @kate_hammer @AfterDaylight @emlas @anastasiaki @ropebelt @XSovietNews @ArnoldNetakoy @nycsouthpaw @TrickFreee @MelissaJPeltier @ProtestSPb
