WORLD – UKRAINE
Yevheny Prigozhin, an entrepreneur and founder of the private military company Wagner, has announced that he intends to run for president of Ukraine next year. He made the announcement in a video shared on his Twitter page by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister.
“I’m making a political coming out. I just have political ambitions, looking at everything around me,” Prigozhin says on the tape. “I have made a decision to run for president of Ukraine in 2024. And I will compete for that post with Poroshenko and Zelensky.”
“If I win, then everything will be fine. Shells will be unnecessary,” Prigozhin adds in the video, in which grenades can be heard bursting along with his voice.
It is not yet clear how serious Prigozhin is about his statement. Gerashchenko commented that the head of Russian mercenaries is thus trying to divert attention from his ambitions in Russia, where he would like to come to power and possibly become Vladimir Putin’s successor.
The last presidential election in Ukraine was held in the spring of 2019. At that time, Zelensky defeated Poroshenko, who was seeking a second term, in the second round, with 73 per cent of the vote. The presidential term in Ukraine is five years.
Prigozhin said he wants to run for president of Ukraine in 2024
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) March 11, 2023
This statement is intended to divert attention from his political ambitions in Russia, where he dreams of coming to power and possibly being Putin's successors pic.twitter.com/sSGEXUUcDO
