Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman who earned the nickname “Putin’s chef” via his catering contracts with the Kremlin, was reportedly sued greater than 500 occasions final 12 months over supplying the Russian military with low-quality meals.
Prigozhin, a former hot-dog vendor turned billionaire restaurateur with shut ties to the Russian president, was hit with 560 lawsuits in 2022 by Russia’s protection ministry for allegedly supplying the Russian military with poor-quality, rotten and contaminated meals, the unbiased outlet Mozhem Obyasnit (“We are able to clarify”) said on its Telegram channel.
Prigozhin who based the Wagner Group—the Russian mercenary paramilitary group—was given the nickname after he turned a restaurateur following a stint in jail. He started finishing up the catering for Kremlin banquets and has personally served Putin himself.
ALEXEY DRUZHININ/SPUTNIK/AFP/Getty Pictures
He went on to arrange his restaurant and catering enterprise, Harmony Catering, which started by supplying meals for varsity youngsters. He later secured a contract to feed the Russian military.
In accordance with Mozhem Obyasnit, the Russian protection ministry’s procurement arm—JSC Voentorg—filed 560 lawsuits in opposition to meals suppliers related to Prigozhin, claiming greater than 107 million rubles ($1,555,780) in damages.
Voentorg is a contractor of Russia’s protection ministry and gives catering and laundry companies for the Russian military.
Within the first 12 months of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin’s corporations had been hit with a file variety of lawsuits over provides to the Russian military, based on Mozhem Obyasnit.
Voentorg, nevertheless, claimed essentially the most cash from Prigozhin’s corporations in 2020—197.1 million rubles ($2,866,283), the unbiased outlet discovered. It famous that after Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the variety of violations elevated, together with as a result of modifications in logistics, whereas the variety of claims in courts additionally rose.
Firms related to Prigozhin not solely provide the meals merchandise themselves, however additionally they reportedly put together and serve the meals immediately within the army models themselves.
In accordance with the outlet, auditors usually discover violations, similar to “undersized portions of meals, expired merchandise, substitutions of substituted merchandise with substitutes of different high quality, E. coli detected in meals, cooks with out well being certificates, violations in storage, and so forth.”
In September 2022, Prigozhin admitted to being the mastermind behind the shadowy paramilitary unit, the Wagner Group, which was based in 2014. The group, which gives troopers for rent, has been main Russian forces in offensives in jap Ukraine.
In latest weeks, consultants have famous the rising divide between Prigozhin and Putin after the previous criticized Russia’s progress within the invasion of Ukraine.
Newsweek reached out to Russia’s International Ministry and Harmony for remark.
Do you’ve got a tip on a world information story that Newsweek needs to be overlaying? Do you’ve got a query concerning the Russia-Ukraine warfare? Tell us through worldnews@newsweek.com.
