A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to US officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks.
The officials said they are trying to learn if General Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin in his 23 years in power.
General Surovikin is a respected military leader who helped shore up defences across the battle lines after Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year, analysts say. He was replaced as the top commander in January but retained influence in running war operations and remains popular among the troops.
American officials also said there are signs that other Russian generals may also have supported Prigozhin’s attempt to change the leadership of the defence ministry by force. Current and former US officials said Prigozhin would not have launched his uprising unless he believed that others in positions of power would come to his aid.
Addressing the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said: “There will be a lot of various speculations, gossip and so on around these events — I think this is one of such examples.” Peskov insisted that Russia had unified around Vladimir Putin, saying: “The army, the people, everyone was next to the president.”
If General Surovikin was involved in last weekend’s events, it would be the latest sign of the infighting that has characterized Russia’s military leadership since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine and could signal a wider fracture between supporters of Prigozhin and Putin’s two senior military advisers: Sergei K. Shoigu, the minister of defence, and General Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of general staff.
Putin must now decide, officials say, whether he believes that General Surovikin helped Prigozhin and how he should respond.
On Tuesday, the Russian domestic intelligence agency said that it was dropping “armed mutiny” criminal charges against Prigozhin and members of his force. But if Putin finds evidence General Surovikin more directly helped Prigozhin, he will have little choice but to remove him from his command, officials and analysts say.
Some former officials say Putin could decide to keep General Surovikin if he concludes he had some knowledge of what Prigozhin had planned but did not aid him. For now, analysts said, Putin seems intent on pinning the mutiny solely on Prigozhin.
“Putin is reluctant to change people,” said Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “But if the secret service puts files on Putin’s desk and if some files implicate Surovikin, it may change.”
New York Times News Service
