"Putin's chef", oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, in an interview with Nevsky News, said that he had invested up to 2 billion rubles in the election campaign of the governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov.
Prior to the 2019 elections, Prigozhin said he was told by “an important person” that he could spend as much money on the campaign as he needed. He promised to return the entire amount, however, according to Prigozhin, this never happened.
After the election, says "Putin's cook", he came to Beglov to discuss the development of St. Petersburg. Prigozhin planned to take up projects for the construction of a production cluster in the area of the abandoned industrial zone "Gorskaya" and 61 transport hubs (TPU). The cost of the second project is 186 billion rubles. He assembled a team of specialists and presented it at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in June 2021. After that, Beglov, who saw the presentation, suggested that Prigozhin sign the project “in a different form” or not affect all TPU.
“I couldn't understand what happened. Later, I learned that these transport hubs were distributed on the same day among Beglov’s relatives and friends, ”Prigozhin is quoted as saying by Nevskiye Novosti. He stated that he had not seen Beglov after this meeting. Now, according to Prigozhin, TPUs are being sold “mainly for cash, by various murky people, with murky schemes.”
It is noteworthy that the Nevskiye Novosti publication is part of the Patriot group, whose board of trustees is headed by Prigozhin himself.
