What was Putin's relationship with Prigozhin over the years?

Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin have had a complicated relationship in recent months.

For more than 20 years, they seemed to have a mutual understanding: Prigozhin would get rich, while Putin could use the mercenary leader's military forces.

Thus, Prigozhin operated in the shadows, making him non-threatening to the Russian president.

But he was recently appointed as the leader of the private military group Wagner and his profile rose - triggering a series of events that may have led to his untimely death.

Putin and Prigozhin likely first crossed paths in the early 1990s, when the latter became chief executive of gambling business Spectrum CJSC.

At the time, Putin was chairman of the casino and gambling supervisory board.

Read too There is also Putin's reaction after the plane crash in which Yevgeny Prigozhin is said to have died

Prigozhin later entered the restaurant business, serving Putin and then-French President Jacques Chirac at one of his locations.

Thus, he got the nickname "Putin's cook".

Meanwhile in 2014, Prigozhin founded the Wagner Group – which began to play an active role in Russia's operations in Africa and the Middle East.

And when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, Wagner's mercenaries were stationed there as well.

Prigozhin also began mass recruiting Russian criminals to serve in his army, telling them: "I have special authority from the president, ... I must win this damn war at all costs."

But after years of doing the Kremlin's dirty work, it now appears that Prigozhin may have "been shown to be too ambitious".

Experts have said the Kremlin allowed Prigozhin to do what he wanted as long as he remained useful to Putin - but after his short-lived uprising, that time may now be over. /Telegraph/