Russian raid on Prigozhin’s residence reveals wig collection, souvenir sledge hammers
Russian raid on Prigozhin’s residence reveals wig collection, souvenir sledge hammers – On Wednesday, Russian state unleashed a ferocious attack on Yevgeny Prigozhin, the exiled mercenary who led a failed armed insurrection last month, and claimed that the incident was still being aggressively investigated.
On June 24, Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, seized control of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, took control of the command post where Russia coordinates its war in Ukraine, and sent a column of fighters in Moscow before settling a standoff with the Kremlin and withdrawing his forces.
The Kremlin has been forced to engage in a damage-limitation exercise in which it has emphasized the loyalty of the armed forces and the unity of society in the face of treachery because his mutiny represented the biggest threat to President Vladimir Putin since the Russian leader assumed office more than two decades ago.
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Prigozhin, whose goal had been to remove the defense minister and chief of the General Staff for what he saw as their inept conduct of the war, was supposed to relocate to neighboring Belarus under the agreement that put a stop to the mutiny. Criminal accusations against him were supposed to be dismissed in exchange.
However, what was advertised as exclusive video from police searches on Prigozhin’s office and one of his villas in St. Petersburg was presented in a program called “60 Minutes” that aired on the state-run Rossiya-1 station on Wednesday night.
The programme’s host, lawmaker Yevgeny Popov, called Prigozhin “a traitor” and the footage was presented by a specially invited guest – journalist Eduard Petrov – as proof of Prigozhin’s criminal past and hypocrisy in calling out corruption in the armed forces.
The footage showed boxes full of high-denomination roubles in his office and bundles of dollars in his luxurious residence along with what was called his personal helicopter, an arms cache, a collection of wigs, a fully equipped medical treatment room, and a collection of souvenir sledge hammers, the tool Wagner allegedly used to bludgeon traitors to death in videos that surfaced online.
“Nobody planned to close this case. The investigation is ongoing,” said Petrov, who said investigators had concluded that a video used by Prigozhin as a pretext to start the mutiny which showed an alleged Russian strike on a mercenary camp was a fake.
Images of armed Russian law enforcement agents entering Prigozhin’s office were shown.
“I consider that the creation of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s image as a people’s hero was all done by media fed by Yevgeny Prigozhin,” said Petrov, referring to media outlets financed by Prigozhin. “After it failed, they quickly closed and fled.”
He said cash worth 600 million roubles ($6.58 million) had been found in Prigozhin’s properties.
The programme’s host, lawmaker Yevgeny Popov, called Prigozhin “a traitor” and the footage was presented by a specially invited guest – journalist Eduard Petrov – as proof of Prigozhin’s criminal past and hypocrisy in calling out corruption in the armed forces.
The footage showed boxes full of high-denomination roubles in his office and bundles of dollars in his luxurious residence along with what was called his personal helicopter, an arms cache, a collection of wigs, a fully equipped medical treatment room, and a collection of souvenir sledge hammers, the tool Wagner allegedly used to bludgeon traitors to death in videos that surfaced online.
“Nobody planned to close this case. The investigation is ongoing,” said Petrov, who said investigators had concluded that a video used by Prigozhin as a pretext to start the mutiny which showed an alleged Russian strike on a mercenary camp was a fake.
Images of armed Russian law enforcement agents entering Prigozhin’s office were shown.
“I consider that the creation of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s image as a people’s hero was all done by media fed by Yevgeny Prigozhin,” said Petrov, referring to media outlets financed by Prigozhin. “After it failed, they quickly closed and fled.”
He said cash worth 600 million roubles ($6.58 million) had been found in Prigozhin’s properties.
