Prigozhin planned to capture Russian military leaders but plot was leaked: Report
Mike Brest
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Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, sought to capture top Russian military leaders during his short-lived rebellion, though his plans leaked ahead of time.
He intended to capture Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s general staff, during their visit to a southern region that borders Ukraine, but the Federal Security Service, or FSB, uncovered his intentions, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing Western officials.
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Gen. Viktor Zolotov, commander of the National Guard of Russia, told state media on Tuesday: “Specific leaks about preparations for a rebellion that would begin between June 22-25 were leaked from Prigozhin’s camp.”
Prigozhin, who has frequently criticized Shoigu and Gerasimov over the last couple of months, directed his troops to march toward Moscow and faced little resistance on Friday. While he had to push up those plans due to the leak, Prigozhin’s troops were able to capture the southern city of Rostov, which is a key command point for the Russian invasion.
A senior Russian general, Gen. Sergey Surovikin, may have known ahead of time about Prigozhin’s plot, though it’s unclear if he helped plan the attempted rebellion or was responsible for the leak that hampered its likelihood of success, the New York Times reported, citing U.S. officials.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that Surovikin was involved in the attempted mutiny calling it “speculation and rumors.”
The standoff ended with a deal brokered by the Belarusian government, which is where Prigozhin fled.
The short-lived rebellion at Putin’s grip on power represents one of the most public threats to his reign for more than two decades, with U.S. officials arguing the incident demonstrated “cracks” within Putin’s circle.
“We don’t have full information obviously, and it is too soon to tell exactly where this is going to go,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday. “I suspect that this is a moving picture, and we haven’t seen the last act yet. But we could say this: First of all, what we’ve seen is extraordinary. And I think you’ve seen cracks emerge that weren’t there before.”
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It’s unclear how the debacle will affect Russia’s war in Ukraine, given the Wagner Group had largely participated in the war and was on the front lines in Bakhmut for months in what has been the deadliest battle of the war.
Prigozhin, at the start of his plot, publicly acknowledged that Russian officials had been lying to the citizens about the justification of the war. The Wagner leader admitted that NATO and Ukraine did not present a legitimate threat to Russia.