After weeks of unexpected battlefield setbacks for Russia, the war in Ukraine on Sunday delivered another surprise: the emergence of a former Russian convict and onetime hot-dog seller as perhaps the Kremlin¡¯s best hope for a small, face-saving military victory.
With occupying Russian forces at peril in the strategic southern city of Kherson, troops with a private military force controlled by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a convicted thief and longtime associate of Russia¡¯s president, Vladimir Putin, advanced on the Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut in the country¡¯s east.
The city, under attack by Russia for months, has little strategic value, but a victory there for Moscow would break its humiliating run of defeats ¡ª and give a boost to the political fortunes of Prigozhin, a shadowy businessman who served nine years in a Soviet prison for robbery. Prigozhin used to be mocked as ¡°Putin¡¯s cook¡± because of his business interests in catering but is now a growing force in Russia¡¯s labyrinthine power politics.
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