BBC’s Russian service: Putin’s secret decree awarded state Order of Merit to Yevgeny Prigozhin for serving dinner at G8 summit

BBC’s Russian service has discovered a confidential decree from 2008, by which Russia’s President Vladimir Putin awarded Yevgeny Prigozhin, then owner of the Concord management company, a first-class order of Merit to the Fatherland.

After Prigozhin’s failed insurrection attempt in July, a search of his St. Petersburg home turned up a full dress uniform decorated with multiple state awards, including a Hero of Russia star. Only a few of them were linked to published award decrees.

The title of the confidential decree numbered 1199, just found by the journalists, says that it awards “staff members of the Directorate of the President.” Sergey Markov, an attorney who gave a comment on the decree for BBC, thinks that this can mean one of two things: either Prigozhin had a secret post within the directorate, or his name had been “thrown into the same decree” for convenience, so as not to issue a separate decree for him alone.

Award recipients listed in the presidential decree 1199 were all being honored for their contributions to the 2006 G8 summit in St. Petersburg. Prigozhin’s role at that summit was to serve dinner for Vladimir Putin and his guests, including the U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, at the posh Lindstrom Mansion.