Lawsuit Against 'Putin's Chef' Prigozhin Aims to Frustrate War Machine

A British law firm is taking legal action on behalf of Ukrainians against the Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner private military company is considered a backbone of Moscow's aggression during the ongoing invasion.

Jason McCue, senior partner at McCue Jury & Partners, said his firm had issued a "letter before action" to start proceedings in the High Court in London as part of a civil society "lawfare" campaign by an international group of lawyers, investigators, and campaigners.

"The first thing is to frustrate the war machine by distracting it in any way we can," McCue told Newsweek.

Last week, his firm said Wagner was using "torture, murder and rape as weapons of war" against the Ukrainian civilian population.

On what it called a "landmark case," the firm said it would be the first time victims have sued an organization like Wagner "for intentionally causing harm and suffering through its use of terrorism as a weapon of war." McCue said the case would be enough to make Prigozhin and his allies "worried about some of their assets around the world."

"They're not quite sure as yet who we're actually going to go after, which individuals and we're purposely not going into that at this stage," he said. His firm wanted to send a message in a public way about "the criminality of the Russian campaign" and that "people around the world are supportive," of Ukraine's fight.

He said that Prigozhin would get three months to respond, after which a claim would be issued. "Then the question is, 'is he going to fight and defend and the others who we bring into it, will they defend?"

"If he doesn't turn up and it's just on him, then we will be in court fairly quickly. We can get it fast tracked. There'll probably be a case management hearing [and] it could be done within a year."

"Of course, then we would be looking at freezing orders," McCue added. His firm intends to crowdfund its case via Crowdjustice.org which as of Tuesday had raised $3,565.

Prigozhin responded to the lawsuit by telling Russian website Reedus that it "flatters me in many ways" and that it showed "the immeasurable merits and the contribution that the Wagner group makes to the destruction of the NATO control regime over Kyiv."

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Prigozhin in 2018 as he was indicted in the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. On Monday, he admitted he had interfered in U.S. elections and said he would continue doing so in future,

Before the war in Ukraine, Wagner played a key role in Russian conflicts in Africa and Syria, but the Kremlin previously would not admit its connection to the group.

Now, its ties with the Russian authorities are more out in the open and Prigozhin, nicknamed "Putin's Chef," has been critical of the country's defense ministry and its head, Sergei Shoigu. As previously reported by Newsweek, Prigozhin could be crafting a military structure parallel to the Russian Armed Forces, which could ultimately threaten the Russian president's rule.