The leaders of the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary group answerable to Vladimir Putin, now have as much political influence in the Kremlin as the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, a prominent Russian dissident and former political prisoner has told a British parliamentary group.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky told the foreign affairs committee that Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman who finally admitted in September 2022 that he had founded the group, had as much access to Putin as the formal government officials.
