Yevgeny Prigozhin, restaurateur and head of the Wagner mercenary group, boasts that Russia is influencing US elections. We will continue to do so, he says.
In July, the US State Department reportedly offered a reward of up to $10 million. The sum was promised to whistleblowers with information about Yevgeny Prigozhin’s involvement in US election interference. Now, four months later, Prigozhin has readily admitted this interference.
Prigozhin is actually a restaurateur and is known as “Putin’s chef” because his catering company has many contracts with the Kremlin. For years he stayed away from the public, now he has appeared in the last few months with remarkable confessions. In September, he admitted to founding the Wagner group, a mercenary force active in Syria and Africa, among other places, and also fighting in Ukraine. Prigozhin denied this for years, even though his name is on the sanctions lists of the European Union, Great Britain and the USA. Now he also boasts that Russia has influenced US elections.
“We interfered, we interfered and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, since we know how to do it,” Prigozhin wrote in a post on the online network VKontakte on Monday , the Russian equivalent of Facebook. “During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once,” he added. Prigozhin left open what that could mean.
After the 2020 US election, in which Donald Trump won, there were investigations by the CIA into whether Russia had interfered in the election campaign through targeted false reports and spying on the digital voting system in order to influence the vote in Trump’s favour. Accordingly, the Russian military intelligence service GRU is said to be responsible for the interference. Trump himself and members of his government were also suspected of having cooperated with Russia.
At the Midterms, a new Congress and numerous new governors will be elected in the USA on Tuesday. The elections are not only under close scrutiny because they could show how much influence former President Trump still has. They are also a vote on President Biden’s course in the Ukraine war so far, supporting the country with weapons and money to defend itself.