Yevgeny Prigozhin, the shaven-headed former convict and catering magnate who runs Russia's Wagner mercenary army on the Ukraine frontline, said on Friday that a politician who criticised him should be shot and may end up on a pitchfork.
Fuelling a growing standoff with Russia's political and military elite, Prigozhin evoked the actions of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin during World War Two to excoriate a regional governor who had told him to stick to his food business.
