Wagner-linked Putin ally: ‘Dying west thinks Russians are third world scum’

‘Putin’s cook’ Yevgeny Prigozhin, left, serving food to Vladimir Putin at a restaurant outside Moscow in 2011. Photograph: Misha Japaridze/AP

A Russian businessman and close ally of Vladimir Putin accused by the US, EU and others of financing the private military company Wagner Group has said that “a dying-out western civilisation” will be defeated by Russia.

The Guardian had approached Yevgeny Prigozhin seeking his reaction to evidence implicating Wagner fighters in massacres in Mali. In response he said he had “repeatedly said that the Wagner Group does not exist” and that he had “nothing to do with it”.