A Wagner PMC fighter held a lesson “Talk about important things” for third-graders at school No. 13 in the Privolnaya village of the Krasnodar Territory, while he hid his face with a mask. An article with the heading "Interesting meeting" was published on the school's website.
The report says that the lesson was held on October 3, the leadership calls the fighter an “honored guest”, who told the children “about the important role of the unit in the Donbass.” The fighter showed the equipment that he "used during the fighting" and awards: the medal "For Courage"; "For the capture of Popasnaya" and a gold cross of the 1st degree, issued by PMCs.
“The guys were interested in everything: what kind of weapons the fighters use during the SVO, how and where they rest, if they don’t participate in hostilities, whether women serve in the unit, who and how provides first aid to the wounded, how military doctors find out about the wounded, whether they use fighters with telephones and.d.
The article also says that the schoolchildren wrote letters to the military, who are now at the forefront, and asked them to send them to the front.
Prigozhin is not the only founder of the Wagner PMC. Dmitry Utkin (callsign Wagner) is also considered a co-founder, who, together with Prigozhin, traveled to Russian colonies in September 2022 to recruit prisoners to be sent to the front. Prigozhin repeatedly sued those who publicly called him the head of the Wagner PMC. In particular, the lawsuit was filed against the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy, Alexei Venediktov. The latter lost the court in August 2022 due to the words that Prigozhin is the "owner of Wagner PMC".
In September, a video was published online showing Prigozhin recruiting prisoners from Yoshkar-Ola IK-6 to take part in the war against Ukraine. On the footage, he stands in front of the prisoners and tells them about the conditions of service. In the same video, Prigozhin for the first time explicitly says that he owns the Wagner PMC. The convicts told The Insider even before the video appeared that Prigozhin personally recruited prisoners in Russian colonies, offering release in six months for participation in hostilities in Ukraine.
Prigozhin is a recidivist criminal convicted of theft, fraud and involvement of minors in criminal activities. Prigozhin's mercenaries are involved in many operations abroad, in many cases (such as the invasion of Ukraine) under the direct command of the GRU. He earned the nickname "Putin's chef" because he organizes Kremlin dinners. He also funds the Internet Research Agency, the largest troll factory in Russia. In February 2018, a federal court in the U.S. District of Columbia accused a "troll factory" of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.