Yevgeny Prigozhin rose from hot dog seller to top chef to Russia’s leading mercenary. Journalist Paul Wood and Harvard’s Timothy Colton explain why he turned on Vladimir Putin this weekend.

This episode was produced by Siona Peterous and Hady Mawajdeh with help from Avishay Artsy, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd with help from Cristian Ayala, and hosted by Noel King.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained

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