Could Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin replace Vladimir Putin as Russia's next president?

Yevgeny Prigozhin knows how to cause a stir.

Hitting the headlines almost daily for his spicy comments about the Ukraine war, the notorious leader of Russia's Wagner Group is allegedly eyeing up political power.

Some even suggest he wants to become president.

“Prigozhin is a deeply disreputable character,” Professor Mark Galeotti, an analyst of Russian politics, told Euronews. “This is a man who has risen by doing whatever Putin and the Kremlin want – and obviously doing very well for himself in the process.”

Even before he sent his mercenary army into some of Ukraine’s grittiest battles, Prigozhin ran a troll farm meddling in US elections – landing him in hot water with the FBI – and used his private militia fighters for shady business across the African continent.

His latest gambit is reportedly seizing a political party in Russia, which analysts at the Insitute for the Study of War warn could trigger “fractionalisation within the Kremlin”.

“It’s clear he’s trying to position himself to play a public role in Russian politics,” said Mark Beissinger, Professor of Politics at Princeton University. “There is a question that is increasingly hanging over Russian politics: What will happen after Putin.”

“Putin is not in danger of being overthrown,” he continued. “But he is getting older, and as dictators age, those with ambitions try to position themselves to potentially fill the gap left by the leader’s death.”

Prigozhin’s political power rests on Wagner – with no other Russian politician commanding such military force – and his massive fortune was "accrued protecting weak African regimes in exchange for their gold mines", points out Beissinger, though he doubted the mercenary would ever take Putin on directly.

Buoyed by alleged