Vladimir Putin’s gun for hire takes aim at US elections

The leader of a notorious pro-Kremlin mercenary group accused of being Vladimir Putin’s private army has warned that he will disrupt the US midterm elections.

Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The leader of a notorious pro-Kremlin mercenary group accused of being Vladimir Putin’s private army has warned that he will disrupt the US midterm elections.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former hot-dog salesman who rose to ­become a powerful businessman known as “Putin’s chef”, is head of the Wagner Group, a private military contractor whose fighters have been accused of atrocities in Ukraine, Syria and Africa.

He is one of 13 Russians criminally charged for interfering in the 2016 US election to help Donald Trump win the presidency. He has now become the first Putin ally to admit such interference after years of denials from Moscow that it had sought to sow disinformation among American voters.

“We have interfered (in US elections), we are interfering and we will continue to interfere, he said in a comment posted on the social media page of his catering company, Concord.

“Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do. During our pinpoint ­operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once.”

It came as Russian social media accounts sprung back into action before the midterms amid rising fears of a violent fallout from disputed results. Online disinformation has been targeted at Democratic candidates in closely fought Senate seats in states ­including Arizona, Ohio and Pennsylvania, in an attempt to stir up an already tense atmosphere.

Researchers who tracked the reactivation of “sleeper” Russian-backed accounts said Moscow’s aim was to deepen polarisation and to push for a Republican-controlled congress that could be less likely to approve funds for Ukraine.

In July the State Department offered a reward of up to $US10m ($15.5m) for information on Mr ­Prigozhin, 61, in connection with “engagement in US election interference”.

Mr Prigozhin is a close confidante of the Russian President and ­acquired his nickname after the Mr Putin started eating at his restaurant in the early 2000s and subsequently awarded him lucrative Kremlin catering deals.

Last week, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Kremlin critic who was once Russia’s richest man, told a parliamentary foreign affairs committee that Mr Prigozhin was a “significant and important tool for the Kremlin”, adding: “He is in direct contact with President Putin and he receives instructions from him.”

Mr Khodorkovsky also said that Mr Prigozhin’s influence was equal to that of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov or Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Mr Prigozhin’s claims coincide with warnings from several private social media research companies that accounts believed to be run by Russian operatives have stepped up attacks on President Joe Biden and Democrats.

One account posted a doctored photograph in September that showed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as a bikini-wearing pole dancer being showered with dollar bills by Mr Biden – showing how Russian trolls had sought to influence opinion.

The New York Times reported that the research companies tracking the activity, Recorded Future, Graphika and Mandiant, found several Russian campaigns using largely unmoderated platforms popular with American conservatives, including Gab, Parler and Gettr.

The Times