Citation Needed - Yevgeny Prigozhin

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin[a] (Russian: Евге́ний Ви́кторович Приго́жин, IPA: [jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ˈvʲiktərəvʲɪtɕ prʲɪˈɡoʐɨn]; 1 June 1961 – 23 August 2023) was a Russian mercenary leader and oligarch.[4] He led the Wagner Group private military company and was a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until launching a rebellion in June 2023.[5] Prigozhin was sometimes referred to as "Putin's chef" because he owned restaurants and catering businesses that provided services to the Kremlin.[6] Once a convict in the Soviet Union,[7] Prigozhin controlled a network of influential companies whose operations, according to a 2020 investigation, were "tightly integrated with Russia's Defence Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU".[8]

Shrek doesn't make his name up on the spot. He does, rewatch the scene. Yeah, yeah, the one other time someone says his name is in the first act when the donkey introduces him to someone else, it kind of makes sense. There you go, breathe by breathe. Oh, I really think we should just call the hospital. Yeah, well, we can't.

So just, he ice pack on. Hey, guys, what happened to you? Yeah, you look at you, you got beat up pretty bad. Yeah, we did, we did. So you know how this week's episode is about if you have any progoation, Russian oligarch trying to overthrow the government. Uh, yeah, of course.

Yeah, well, we got to thinking, hey, maybe that's what we need to do as well. Oh, for to throw the Russian government. No, no, no, no, no, overthrow the more popular podcasts than ours. You know, like take their listeners and stuff. Yeah, exactly. Established dominance. Right. Well, that's not how podcasting works. And it seems it didn't go too well for you. So who did you try to overthrow? I was called her daddy. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. Those hosts could definitely kick our asses

So if you lifted me over her head and threw me through a window. No, yeah, I can see that. Yeah, so strong Hello and welcome to a citation needed, the podcast where we choose a subject read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm no one, I'm going to be commanding this unit today, but to win this battle, I'll need other people to do all the fighting for me. First up, two men who put the sin and mercenary, heath and Cecil. Okay, our tandem pushups are sin for the mercenary. Caliante. And mercenarying is a lot of triangle stuff. Just a lot of to do, for sure. Yeah. And also joining us tonight, two men, who put the Earths in Merck's Tom and Elon. Yeah, for sure. Listen, in a war of attrition with me, I guarantee that you will want to go home first. Well, I'm just saying, are we there yet? Is a very relevant question when you're going to kill civilians now?

Jesus, I know it is, though. It is. Where does Trump... And of course, references to war crimes can only mean one thing. It's time to thank those patrons. Patrons. Oh my God. If it were for you, Eli would be making. But you're gonna say auto ads for sure, right?

No, but if it wasn't for you, patrons, Eli would be making war crime Joseph's even less appropriate venues. So thank you. And of course, if you'd like to join their ranks, be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us Cecil, what person, please think concept phenomenon or event. We'll be talking about today. We're going to be talking about

you have getting pergusion. I think it's right. So Tom, you read the wiki, presumably, are you ready to weave this tail? Well, I got nothing to do for the next 45 minutes. So what the hell? Hell yeah, man. So why did you pick you've got any pergusion for this this week's topic? You know during this increasingly impossible to take seriously timeline. Just a few scant months ago you may recall when for about a day a former Russian hotdog vendor turned international mercenary. Let the first albeit stunningly brief armed march on Moscow since World War II and look to an all brief hotdog I do not know if it's right to call Progozion's trajectory a rise to power or a descent into power crazed madness

But I do know it is one hell of a story that Much like pretty much all of the events in the last seven or eight years is so absurd that if the story returned into your freshman creative writing teacher It would be handed back with a strong request for rewrites. Right. And in this case, maybe a meeting with the school psychiatrist. Right. Or in Russian schools, I just give it back to you with Polonium. Sure. Yeah. No, that's him. That's him.

Well, let's begin. Yavgeny Pergoshin was born in 1961 in Leningrad, in what was then the Soviet Union. His mother was a hospital nurse, his father, a mining engineer. He had no siblings, and by the time he was nine, he had no father either, then he had died. He was sent to Ukraine for several years of his childhood to live with his great uncle,

a Soviet scientist who made young Evgeny work in an open pit uranium mine. Jesus. Like, you know, for science. Hey, guys, the canaries alive, but I think it's a tear dack, though again. I don't know what that is. Exactly.

Exactly. Okay. Eventually, Evgeny's mother remarried and his stepfather introduced you have Gany to cross country skiing, which Evgeny preferred to open pit uranium mining, I guess. And for hot men, any thought about pursuing, you know, a lucrative cross country skiing career by going pro,

even going so far as to graduate from the hallowed halls of Leningrad sports boarding school number 62. That is the real name, by the way. But an injury sideline those plans. So the someday soldier of fortune became for time, a fitness trainer at a children's school. I hate our rush. Always has to one up us, right? We elect a game show host. They have to make a gym teacher the head of their military. It never ends.

I guess this dude quit a couple of cross-country things, huh? Okay. All right. Now, when you have again, he was 18. He was caught stealing and he was sentenced to two and a half years working at a chemical plant in Navigaro. I still sounds more fun than cross-country seeing. That's fucking awful.

Especially in Russia, that must take forever. Jesus Christ. Now supporting a resume as a uranium miner, a chemical plant slave labor, and you know, children's fitness trainer, you have any left prison and promptly joined a gang where he majored in robbery and choking and beating women. In 1981, at the age of 21, you have, Gennie was arrested and sentenced to 12 years at a high security penal colony for robbery, theft, fraud, and involving minors in criminal activity. Yeah, the kids in his gym class just thought he had some really outside the box ideas

about what basketball was, but no. A little piotr is like, I thought dodgeball and bowling were played with different equipment. I was. I once imprisoned, We're playing with different equipping code. Once in prison, do you have any was supposed to be locked down in solitary confinement? But that was not going to suit him. So he somehow and the wiki offers no explanations to how this is possible. Violated his solitary confinement on a regular basis.

What? Yeah. I guess then that means that at high security, Soviet prisons, they ran solitary confinement like on the honor system. Okay. Or maybe he was just like really committing to the imaginary friend bid in a garden like this. No. Anyway, you have to just didn't do the solitary thing

and said he lived in Jenpop with everyone else, reading intensively and finding work as a lay operator, cabinet maker, and receiving training at a vocational school, all of which were actually much better opportunities that he had been afforded while he was not in a maximum security prison. In 1990, after serving nine years, the Evgeni was released and he promptly enrolled in and then failed out of the Leningrad Chemical and Pharmaceutical Institute. Then his dreams of pharmacy had been dashed at the only natural next step.

And he embarked upon a career selling hot dogs with his parents at an open air market. Now, that's what the wiki said. And then I swear this next part is true because the next thing the wiki indicates is that quote, the rubles were piling up faster than his mother could count them. And really? And there's no indication here at all as to how or why the prison hardened uranium miner was pulling in fat cash selling open air hot dogs. But there you go. Well, maybe they were more profitable because he

could cook the dogs on his radioactive skin. Next man, lower over. Okay. I'm pretty sure he grabbed a big pile of something before he failed out of drugs, University of Landrad. That's clearly what I was like. I was raking it in with grilled cheese sandwiches. That's my campus job too. It wasn't the sandwiches making the rules.

I was a Soviet Union fell, Progozion saw room for capitalistic opportunity, and he leveraged that sweet hot dog money to break into the grocery business, which from all accounts was quite lucrative for him, but also by all accounts he was at the same time, setting up shop in the gambling business. And here I feel like I should remind you all that Walter White

had a string of very successful car wash as well. Right. Yes. A working with Boris Spector, a name that isn't highlighted in blue as a link on Wikipedia, so he's certainly a nobody. And some guy other than that, his name also doesn't matter, named Igor, Progoshin became the CEO of Spectrum, CJSC, which put up the first Casinos in St. Petersburg before branching off into other very legitimate

and not at all organized prime related businesses such as construction and foreign trade. Oh, yeah, probably not incidentally in 1991. Vladimir Putin was chairman for the super advisory board for casinos and gambling. Do you guys think in the early days of gangstering, he tried to work hot dogs in as like a theme. Like, was he like, certainly a Mr. Mustard or was he like, sit there and went the opposite direction? What do you think? 100%. I am the frothy body like it. I just see the freshman. Oscar Marlansky. Oscar Marlansky. That's things.

I got a sharp dog and then he's an old fatty gangster. Who there is? Is the two things that he said earlier? No, I just see the freshman creative writing teacher at this point, handing it by like they've circled the Boris Spector and they just write lazy henchmen. You can do better. In 1995, you have getting perhaps again hearing the siren song of a hot dog water filled chafing dish re entered the restaurant business.

You have, Gennie, opened his first restaurant called Old Custom House in St. Petersburg and by 1997 a second restaurant would open called New Island. A New Island is a floating restaurant on the waterfront and it was built on the bones of a rusting boat bobbing itself along on the Vyatgorip. This was or is upscale Russian dining. You have getting, as you might imagine, from a guy who was shaping up to be a soprano's escaphericature, initially featured strip T shows at his restaurants before getting wind that perhaps that wasn't the kind of fancy high-end dining that patrons were looking for.

A fun fact. When my parents brought me to St. Petersburg as a kid because they were teaching in a study abroad program there, the government program coordinators insisted that we have the welcome and good buy dinner at Old Custom House, which I can attend. Well, not only had terrible food and smelled like all the bars in Heathen-Eyes Home Down, but also had an entirely separate dining room for mobsters that we were told not to go into or even look at. So there's, there's Mike Kevin Bacon. In 2001, Vladimir Putin hosted French President Jacques Cheroc at New Island. And you have Gany personally served them both. In 2002, George W. Bush, dim-witted Neocon cowboy want to be wore criminal and shoe dodger

Also died floating island and he was also served personally by Progózion Putin loved new island so much that he returned yet again in 2003 to celebrate his birthday He was loved to look at any roomie wonder when he went there That's some point around 2003 in our timeline, Progojian and Putin began to develop their initial bromance. Progojian began to pull away from his ownership interests in the restaurants themselves and began to very suddenly win very lucrative government catering contract by 2012, he had won government contracts to feed Russian school children, government workers, and even the Russian military.

Contracts which were worth over 1.2 billion with a B in revenue. Just going to throw this out there. If anyone ever gives me a billion dollar job, I promise I will never try to overthrow your government no matter how bad you're losing a lot of just employee the month everybody I'm just saying I'm up. And since this is in Russia, it is full of scams and corruption. The Evgeny's catering company was called Concord Catering. And in 2018, a company called MSK LLC was paid millions of rubles to cater the annual heroes of the Fatherland Day banquet at the Cremland. But if you look that up, MSK LLC has the same phone number as Concord catering.

So they're both just pergusion. And basically he won government catering bids even when he lost them because he just lost the job to another one of his own company. So Yavgeny was becoming fantastically wealthy. Just just get another phone line. What are you doing? You're a billionaire. Cut the Jacob Walgorn. coming fantastically wealthy. Just, just get another phone line. What are you doing? Why are you doing that? You're a billionaire.

Cut the Jacob Walgorn. Yeah, you know what that seems? Obviously in retrospect. He's, at least in the US, our billionaire, oh, we have a decent seat at another store. Exactly. Not Jacob Walgorn though. So, Progusion did what all former pit minor ex-cons

turned oligarchs to and he moved his family into a heavily fortified compound in St. Petersburg, complete with a full basketball court and helicopter landing. Progoshin had acquired much of the oligarch accessory kit by now with his own private jet pin in that one and a mod of 115 foot. Yeah. That hot dog money was really stacked up. I hope his yacht looked like the Oscar one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a one and a like Mrs. Bag. Now, in just the case, you think I'm being unfair. No, I'm not. The foodie supplied to kids. I'm not.

No, no. No. No. This guy. Look, the foodie supplied to the kids was of such low quality that in 2019, he caused a dysentery outbreak. He was still corrupt. He was still corrupt.

Then in 2022, he won the corrupt person of the year award from, and I love this, the organized crime corruption reporting project. They have an awards show. Wow. Uh-huh. A little, do they know that it was about to get much, much worse? All right. Well, I need a minute to take Thomas Ideneska. If he's doing a Russian essay as revenge for me doing a shipwrecked guy's being stupid essay last year. So we're gonna pause for a little apropos of nothing. And now, back to the 231st annual Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Awards. And we're back. Man, it's been a magical night, Tony.

You could say that again, Carl. So weird, man. Anyways, now it's time for the moment we've all been waiting for, the corrupt person of the year award. Hira, you're nominees. Giuseppe, Moltenotto, Vito's car repair. Oh sure, I can fix the car for you, but it would be a shame if someone broke it all over again.

Congressman Meklaughn Hanske, South Carolina, 33rd District. Mr. Meia, I can get you that highway next week, but it's gonna take a little favor from you if you know what I mean. And last, but certainly not least, you've got any progoesion, Russian hotdog stand. Extra relish. Yes anything for you Mr. President. And the winner is... Oh my god it finally happened you've got any promotion! Oh wow oh my god yes I really I did not have speech planned is this thing. It really is so heavy to hold it. Okay, so many people must be thanking now. I want thank mom and dad tireless supporting me in and out of jail. This is just so much overwhelmed really. Obviously Russian mob, yes, thank you for being such welcoming and amazing

collaborators, but no, I could not have done this without the vacuum left by mercantilist capitalism. We brought down the wall, baby. We did it. I love you all. Yes, this is for you! Fantastic, fantastic, well deserved. All right, well let's take another commercial break and when we're back, Michael Marshall will give himself skeptic of the year once again. give himself skeptic of the year once again. And we're back when we last left off. You've get a pergusion, was well on this way to being an even less likable restaurant tour than Papa John.

So, uh, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, He's not too bad. I feel like Pobrachon's got a war crime in him somewhere, right? Yeah, he puts a fucking ranch dipping sauce in pizza. That's a war crime. All right, so what's next for pre-go? All right, so listen, most of the rest of the story is going to focus on the Wagner group, but I need to pause here for a quick aside. In 2016, a network of companies, including a company called the Internet Research Agency, worked very, very hard to try to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election.

And you have any progoation invented, created, and managed the Internet Research Agency. So remembering back to the massive Internet troll and misinformation campaign that effort that was spearheaded by a self-made Russian mobster Haydor and mercenary oligarch Okay, if we ever do this back to Russia, we need to pretend the mastermind was like Like diners drive in and hard drives Like Diner's Drive-In's and Hard Drive's. Yeah. It was Ronald McDonald. Papa John.

Now I should, if I were trying to write something very careful at this point, hem and haw a bit about the merciness surrounding the foundation of the Wagner group. But I will not do that. Regulsion founded that shit in 2014, and although he initially denied it, he later took credit for it. And then importantly, led the goddamn group. So even if it wasn't his clubhouse on day one, I don't really give a shit and neither should you.

But yes, also, that was his clubhouse. Yeah, I mean, we already did an episode about Mr. Underwear Poison. So I feel like we've made our bed at this point. I'm not really a weird hedge. Honestly, I have all the violent post-Soviet oligarchs. He's probably the safest one to talk shit about at this point, right? Yeah, the two guys who's raised you made fun of and we're like, they don't man, I'm worried about that.

You fucking leave me. Oh'm worried about that. You fucking. That's a boring specter. Yeah. Yeah. The Wagner group was is was is I don't know. It's not clear at the time of this writing a paramilitary private army. In case you were wondering, a private army is an unholy synergy of capitalist anti-value parasitically combined with unlimited access to weapons, made to form an atrocity and violence gang,

of hired thugs and killers, commissioned by nation states when the need for plausible deniability is necessary, and they still want to maximize the amount of murder they can do without having to follow the pesky rules of engagement of government oversight and transparency. Yeah, yeah, ours is called the CIA. Right, yeah, that is called the CIA. Yeah, the difference is that ours has a group of oligarchs that run it. That's really the only difference. At 2022, Pregozion, in fact, book credit for founding the Wagner group, saying that he had

founded it to protect Russia from the quote genocide of the Russian population of Donbass. That is nothing, by the way, that's not true. That's lying. Propagandist bullshit. Anyway, Yavgani, former hot dog salesman, built the Wagner group from scratch, personally sorting and cleaning old weapons and the bulletproof best himself. Okay, I get that's like a good photo op or whatever, but that's a terrible use of time for the head of an army, right? Like, I want that guy to live in a mass. You know. Now officially, the Russian government has denied

that they used the Wagner group to further their interests across a number of theaters, including Syria, across Africa and in Latin America. But also the Wagner group absolutely was used by the Russian government to violently further their interests across a number of theaters international. Well, yeah, it's never a good sign when the denial includes a list of the places where it didn't have a pregoation under the guise of a billion dollar military meals contract was actually tasked with operational and logistical

military operations in Africa under the direct guidance of Vladimir Putin. I love that they're all supposed to be like food service people. I'm imagining mercenary spies, but they're wearing like the old TGI Fridays uniform with the sliders in the straps and shit. Exactly. What is their story? It's like, oh, no, we're not working for the Russian military. We're just, um, roadies.

We're roadies. We follow the Russian. I love their stuff. Dizzyastic about flair. The Wagner group really came into their own as many of you know, however, when the incompetent and overconfident Russian invaders violated international law and attempted to overtake the sovereign nation of Ukraine by force. The Russian plan was to quickly overrun Kiev, murder the leadership, and then install

a puppet government similar to that in Belarus. The plan was foiled by the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people, the backing of the international community, and of course the Cold War leadership and competencies of the Russian. The Russian ground forces suffered heavy losses and the invasions stalled out and the Russians needed fresh bodies to throw into the grist mail. Q, the Wagner.

They're like, cannon fodder, come on. They don't use cannons anymore. C'mon. C'mon. We've got poor man. This strength. I bet they were mad at Belarus for being beautiful Russia as the title and they were like, fuck you.

Other Wagner group not suffering from the bloat and corruption of the Russian Armed Forces and not hampered by even attempting to not be maximally evil, fairly quickly distinguished themselves as less incompetent than the standard Russian Armed. Pgoation was awarded massive contracts and authority as well as access to sophisticated weapons. And he also used his prison credibility to recruit mercenaries from within the population of the Russian prison. And by 2022, the Vognog group had grown from several thousand soldiers to more than 50,000 soldiers.

Okay, Troops, remember, you're still serving out your solitary confinement sentence is no talking. Why down? Pinkie swear. A fairly swiftly, however, Pregozion ran into conflict with the Russian Ministry of Defense. Remember that Pregozion was a haterer

who had bought himself an arm. He had no explicit authority, no official position, but he did have an enormous allocation of resources with pretty much no oversight of any kind. As battles in Ukraine raged on, Pregozha just did whatever the fuck he wanted, including releasing videos on social media criticizing the Russian military. Yeah, the arrogance is amazing. It's not like Pregozha was doing great himself against Ukraine at that point. Like, he's the guy in the hot dog suit next to the crashed hot dog bank in this case. He was like, okay, whoever it was,

was to meet you fucked up. He's pretty new. All right, but he killed the milk crate challenge. That's not what it was. So criticizing the Russia military was just, that's just not a thing that happened in Russia. You don't publicly criticize the government or the military, at least not without disappearing shortly thereafter, but you have getting the ear of Putin and the most skilled actual military force at play in Ukraine.

This clearly gave foregoation a sense of security and running his fucking mouth about the incompetence of the Russian leadership saying quote All these bastards ought to be sent to the front barefoot with just a submachine gun and quote He called the parliament useless and he suggested that they too should go to the front and during the pitched battle for the city of Vokmut the Wagner group as well as the Russian army suffered heavy losses group as well as the Russian army suffered heavy losses. A frustrated pergusion began to publicly complain about the lack of supply, saying, quote, the Wagner PMC is walking around like a beggar, and quote, before posting a photo of stacks of dead Wagner fighters who, according to Yevgeny, had died from a lack of ammunition. This public calling out of the Russian army's lack of supplies brought the horror of the

war and the indifference of the Russian government to the suffering and death of their own citizens into the living rooms of Russian civilian. Yeah, I would actually say that it's an overabundance of ammunition that killed them, but yeah, internally, that was, but they had bullets. The situation got so bad that by May, Pgocian said that the Wagner group was just going to fuck off and leave the battlefield if they weren't supplied with weapons in ammunition. And everyone knew that a Wagner piece down, there was no way the standard issue Russian army was going to accomplish shit on their own. Yavgeny must be sad, did not mince a lot of words by the way saying quote now listen to me bitches

These are somebody's fathers and somebody's sons and those scum who don't give ammunition Bits will eat their guts and hell. We have a 70. I don't know. That's the quote It doesn't I don't get it. We have a 70% ammunition shortage Shoygu Garamashav where the fuck is the ammunition? Look at them bitches. You sit in expensive clubs, your children enjoy life, you make videos on YouTube. You think you're the masters of this life that you have the right to dispose of their lives. I did like I said, he's a little bit. A little bit. It was like four, right? Like, he was like four, it was four and four sentences. The first one was, you want workshop with like, go back and forth with beach and like something else,

like mother fuck or like, mother fuck, oh, I didn't think of mother fuck. Should have thought of mother fuck. Progoji began to change to become a critic of the Russian leadership and even broader term. Making regular critiques of mother Russia, they would absolutely not be allowed to be said by literally anyone else. By June, a dangerous amount of the Russian citizenry began to favor Purgosia, which was a direct threat to Putin's power and authority.

A survey in Russia put Purgosia in the top 10 most trusted figures by the Russian public. Putin's like, next time, let's make these surveys out the Polonium, what do you say? When you're less trusted than the hot dog warlord, you're the president. Helping to stifle per govian and bring his private army to heal, the Ministry of Defense ordered Wagner to sign contracts with the military. This is a move which would have effectively folded the Wagner group into the Russian military officially.

Pergoation, again, publicly declaring the incompetence of the Russian military leadership, declined to cede his private army. In part because it would have left Yevgeny personally vulnerable and in part because it would have threatened the profitability of his war-mongering mercenaries still operating in Africa. Well, and in part, this fucking dog, they came to him and they're like, hey, um, who wants to talk to you, but he also wants you to not have an army anymore first. Is he unrelated to things? Oh, is he a monster?

Are you trying to miss here? On the 23rd of July, Progozion announced that the Russian military launched missile strikes at Wagner forces. And in that moment, Yavgaianyi declared, quote, the Council of Commanders of PMC Wagner has made a decision, the evil that the military leadership of the country brings must be stopped and quote. This was the start of an armed conflict now between Russia and the Russian-backed Herimilitary Private Army run by a former ex-con-Hotdog salesman.

Now in open revolt, Pregozha declared the invasion of Ukraine based on a series of propaganda lies, and he pulled back the curtain for anyone listening that the real reason for the war was for the enrichment of Russian oligarchs. Also hot dogs are bad for you everybody. To much salt. Night. The next day on the 24th of June, Wagner forces marched into and crossed into Rostov Oblast, resulting in criminal charges being announced against Yevgeny for inciting an armed rebellion. Progocian then began to march on Moscow, engaging along the way in battles against Russian air assets, including military helpers. And for one glorious moment, Russia was living in a Yakov smear-n-off joke because in Soviet Russia, you crane invades you! Hey, if you got that joke, you should get the shingles vaccine.

Everybody just have to quick heads up. If you got it, thank you, Eli. I will put that on my calendar. Yeah, I got it. Come on. Come on. I love that pergotiant was just doing a pump fake at that point, like a bully in the hallway doing that fake punch and Putin flinched and mobilized troops to defend Moscow and

that Putin got laughed at for the flinching and heized troops to defend Moscow and that Putin got laughed at for the flinching and he flew into a murderous rage even more than his like baseline of resting murderous rage. Progoze totally got the middle school win for that moment. He did what happens, but at that moment, when Putin, until now, uncharacteristically silent, publicly declared his former friend was now acting in treason, and he vowed harsh steps to suppress the rebellion. At this point, there was a very weird kind of public back and forth with Putin calling the rebellion

a threat to the existence of Russia and progozion defending his rebels as patriots, even as they were shooting down Russian helicopters and driving onward toward Moscow. And while this was going on, Pregozion, despite the bluster, was busily negotiating. The rebellion was effectively over a day after it began, with Pregozion securing a deal, where he promised not to send his private army into Moscow, and Putin would allow Pregozion to scurry off the bellroom.

Be careful, Putin. You give this guy a foot long, you'll take a mile. Right, but this was clearly like the Elon buying Twitter of insurrections, right? He didn't really want to do it. We talked to him. I didn't have his disastrous results. He didn't want to do it. He turned out way better than Elon. The thing is though, foregotiant didn't stay in Bellar. It's likely because Bellarus is just a puppet state of Russia and it wouldn't be safe at all and also because there was still a lot of money to be made with the Wagner group operating in Africa. At this point, it's a little confusing because, ostensibly, Pregozion had been sent to Belarus, but reports surface that he was back in Russia tying up loose, you know, like

Aligarck business. Regardless of how or why, he ended up on an airplane flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg, on August the 23rd of this year when mysteriously a bomb exploded on board while the plane was in flight, buzzing the plane to tumble from the sky and crash, killing all 10 passengers, including Evgeny Progoshin and leaving the fate of the Wagner group still in limbo. That's right. The opposite of mysterious. No, no, no, no, Mr. Putin is he.

We said mysteriously. We said no idea that could have been anything. So if you had to summarize what you'd learned in one sentence, what would it be? Air travel sucks everywhere. It's eight. It could have been any reason. And are you ready for the quiz? Absolutely. It's eight. It's eight. It's been any reason. And are you ready for the quiz? Absolutely.

Let's do this. All right, Tom. You've done an episode now on you've got any progoation, and Noah did an episode on Vladimir Putin. Who should I do my next essay on? A, a hornet that is a sleep on my eyeball. B, the big cartoon That's the best. That's the best. That's the best.

That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best.

That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best.

That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best for you. So that can't be the answer. I'm gonna go see gamer game. Oh, your wish is my command, Tom. Your wish is my command. All right, Tom, which of the following is the best name for Progojian's strip club restaurant that you were talking about? Hey, the restaurant.

See you. Booby Tuesday. Blue waffle house. Oh, me. Chick-fil-Abe. That's a perfect one. Okay, those are all very good, but the only one I would actually go to is be booby Tuesday. Yes, obviously.

You are correct about your opinion. I was curious. Very different kind of food poisoning. I would eat the shit out of Chipalabia, let me tell ya. All right, Thomas, if you're part of the Wagner group, what's the worst equipment that can be issued from the catering department? A, strafing dish, B, a serving trader,

C, a three tier gas, tier, tears, tears spell differently there. And, or D, a folding chair, man, folding chair. Folded at the end. I think A, strafing dish. Strafing dish is incorrect. I'm sorry, it's three tear gas. That's weird. You're just better written out.

Yeah, three tears and that seems. God, I had it. That Cecil is our winner this week. Heck yeah. Yeah, okay, you can go next Noah. Oh, awesome. All right, well for Tom, he's Eli and Cecil, I'm gonna thank you for handing out with us today.

We're gonna be back next week, and by then I'll be an expert on something else between now and then you can hear more from Tom Cecil on cognitive dissonance and more from he's Eli and myself on God off on movies. And if you'd like to keep this show going, you can make a prepsote edition of patreon.com slash citation pod or leave a five star review everywhere you can. And if you want to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with

social media or check the show and let's be sure to check out citation pod dot com. When thank you one last time to all our wonderful do. That's right, Tony. There it is. I'm sorry, sorry, Carl. No, Keith, I'm wearing the middle of something here. No, I know Eli hasn't written in the notes that using the entirety of Frank Sinatra's my way here at the end of the episode,

but we can't afford those rights. something to you. No, I know Eli hasn't written in the notes that using the entirety of Frank Sinatra's My Way here at the end of the episode, but we can't afford those rights. Oh, come on, you can't. No, I'm sorry. It's offensive. Oh, this is bullshit. I know, man, we're actually just as heartbroken as you are. I'll be in my goddamn trailer. I just wanted to do a hello fresh ad so my cats wouldn't starve. Yeah, well now the show is this, so good job. Fuck. That you don't have. Fuck.