Live. 'Traitors' killed Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, claims group

Yevgeny Prigozhin caused many a stir in Russian politics. 

He hit the headlines on an almost daily basis amid the Ukraine war, pouring fire on the Russian military establishment and openly challenging Kremlin narratives about the conflict. 

This earned him respect among some Russians, but he made enemies in the halls of power. 

A former ally of the Russian president, Prigozhin sent his mercenary army into some of Ukraine's grittiest battles, playing an integral part in capturing the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in a months-long bloody struggle. 

Before this, he 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.

“Prigozhin is a deeply disreputable character,” Professor Mark Galeotti, an analyst of Russian politics, told Euronews in April. “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.”

Prigozhin's power rested 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", Mark Beissinger, Professor of Politics at Princeton University, also told Euronews in April. 

Buoyed by his successes in Ukraine, he picked fights with the governor of St. Petersburg and attacked the military establishment over their campaign against Kyiv. 

He openly defied the Kremlin’s claim it was fighting Nazis in Ukraine, a false argument it has used repeatedly to justify the invasion. That same month the mercenary boss seemingly called on the fighting to stop.

“Prigozhin is... someone who can figure out ways to work the system, but always