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On Sunday, Russian officials confirmed that Yevgeny Prighozin was among those killed in a plane crash last week. Prighozin was chief of the Wagner mercenary group, a private military company. Marat Gabidullin is an ex Russian soldier and former convict, who joined Wagner in 2015 and knew Prigozhin well. He fought with the mercenary group in eastern Ukraine and Syria. He says he parted company with Prigozhin in 2019 and later moved to France, where he currently lives in exile. “I wouldn’t call him brutal, but he advocated harsh methods of rule. He was indeed a smart person, a capable man, very creative. He followed a patriotic way of thinking," he tells Newshour's James Coomorasamy. “There’s no doubt that he was significant person, somebody who was able to create this effective militarised structure.” Photo: A portrait of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is displayed at an informal memorial in his tribute in Moscow, Russia, 28 August 2023. (Photo by MAXIM SHIPENKOV/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)