(Reuters) – Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the founder of the Wagner private military group, has praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a strong and confident leader who should not be underestimated. His comments underlined Prigozhin’s rising public profile and growing confidence in speaking out on sensitive issues around the war in Ukraine in defiance of the standard Moscow line. “Although he is the president of a country hostile to Russia at the moment, Zelenskiy is a strong, confident, pragmatic and nice guy,” Prigozhin said in a statemen…