The Wagner Group by Jack Margolin

Author:Jack Margolin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reaktion Books

The Finer Things

It isn’t just Prigozhin’s mother who has walked between the raindrops of international sanctions. Prigozhin had two daughters, Polina and Veronika, and a son, Pavel. When Polina and Pavel were children, Prigozhin authored a children’s book for them. Later, as young adults, he continued to spoil them.

Polina and Veronika are both amateur showjumpers and have owned a number of horses that they have ridden in competitions across Europe. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) even found that they continued to compete after Russia invaded Ukraine.18 Polina, the eldest daughter, at one point registered a company in Germany to manage her horses. According to her Facebook page, she still lives in Hanover, Germany.

All three children have been involved in their father’s business empire. Prigozhin gave them director and shareholder roles on his many companies and placed them at the helm of businesses like hotels and real-estate development companies in St Petersburg. Pavel has even been involved in Wagner. Prigozhin claimed that he fought with Wagner in Syria and continued to serve as a member. There is little evidence of Pavel’s combat experience, but ample video and photographs of him riding on his father’s private jets, sunbathing nude on his father’s yacht, and drinking with his sisters, friends and wife around a campfire on holiday.

Pavel’s wife, Ekaterina Inkina, is herself the daughter of another St Petersburg catering magnate, Sergey Inkin. Inkin’s company has won catering contracts with Russian companies like Gazprom subsidiaries and companies owned by officials of United Russia, Putin’s political party. These in-laws have been subject to none of the scrutiny that Prigozhin himself contended with. As identified by Navalny’s ACF, the Inkin family own a home in the beachside town of Forte dei Marmi, Italy, worth more than €3 million. There is no evidence that Prigozhin’s family has been able to travel to this property since the start of the war, but there are other beaches in the world.

In early June, videos began appearing on Telegram of Veronika Prigozhina. They were video messages that were clearly not intended to be shared beyond a few of her friends. ‘How’s life in Russia?’ she pouts into the camera, smoking a slim cigarette. ‘It must be cold there.’ In others, she monologues about her life. In some, she is clearly drunk, sobbing out barely intelligible apologies to her friends. In still others, she lounges on a beach, skyscrapers in the distance. Her mother, Lyubov Prigozhina, wanders into the shot.

Many of these videos were recorded in Dubai. They were very clearly extracted from Veronika’s phone illicitly, likely leaked online as part of an effort by Russia’s Defence Ministry to discredit Prigozhin. They showed that his family was able to enjoy life outside Russia, particularly in the UAE. They were in good company: many wealthy Russians moved their assets to Dubai as Russia became more bellicose and Europe became less welcoming. Working at the C4ADS non-profit investigative organization in 2022, my team found dozens of such properties in Dubai, from a former prime minister

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