Every good spy story needs a shadowy operative who does the dirty work for the boss, and thanks to the indictment issued February 16 by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, we now have a nominee for that role in the Russia investigation. He’s a billionaire oligarch named Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and based on Russian and other accounts, he sounds like a real-life version of a James Bond villain.
Prigozhin’s fingerprints appear to be on three of the most sensitive operations launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin: meddling in the 2016 U.S. election; supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine; and providing military muscle for the Syrian regime. Russia’s hidden combatants are often described as “Little Green Men,” and Prigozhin may be the Jolly Green Giant who helps this machine function.
