2023-06-29 11:31:00
Yevgeny Prigozhin, leaving the city of Rostov-on-Don last Saturday ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO | REUTERS
Security forces are investigating whether Commander Surovikin, the butcher of Syria, was aware of the riot
29 jun 2023 . Updated at 12:46 p.m.
The Russian security service (FSB) is investigating whether the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, planned to kidnap the Minister of Defense, Sergui Shoig, and the Chief of the General Staff, Valery Guersimov, as the main reason for his frustrated rebellion. The leaks about the operation and the analysis of the movements of the mercenary chief, who ended up accepting the order to withdraw when his column of 8,000 combatants was two hundred kilometers from Moscow, suggest that the objective was the capture of the two highest military positions in the Kremlin when they were inspecting the troops stationed along the Ukrainian border.
The Government is also trying to determine if Prigozhin, as is becoming increasingly tangible, started the rebellion last Friday under the conviction that he would have the support of an important part of the military hierarchy and even of oligarchs opposed to the strategy of the president, Vladimir Putin. .
The information obtained by Russian and American intelligence agree that had communicated his plans to several senior commanders. And, in fact, members of the US Administration have expressed to The New York Times his certainty that the mercenary chief had not launched a rebellion against Moscow alone. No analyst can imagine how Prigozhin, a combat veteran, could have thought of a successful revolt with only 8,000 men facing the Russian armed forces.
Wagner against Putin: the five keys to a hectic 24 hours in Russia
Among the suspects is General Sergey Surovikin, nicknamed the butcher of Syria or general Armageddon for his extraordinary brutality. Aged 56 and former chief in command of the troops deployed in Ukraine, his whereabouts were unknown this Wednesday. It is assumed that the FSB kept him under interrogation. Apart from specifying whether he was able to find out about the plans of his former friend -they both became friends during the Syrian war-, the security forces must now find out to what degree he helped the riot or if, instead, he decided not to support it.
This possibility would open up another more comfortable scenario, obviously for the Syrian butcher, but it would also prevent Putin from being ousted and arrested. Surovikin is the vice commander of operations in the invasion of Ukraine and is considered a national hero. The head of the Kremlin himself awarded him in December.
Prigozhin failed in secrecy. Intelligence services have benefited from internal leaks in your private company. The satellites had also discovered an unusual concentration of Wagner members outside their bases and very close to the border. The US intercepted their communications. And as if all this were not enough, it was known that in recent days he had accumulated ammunition, weapons, tanks, air defense systems – which he would have used to shoot down the half dozen combat helicopters that crossed his path to Rostov – and fuel for no apparent reason.
The commander of the National Guard, Vctor Zolotov, explained yesterday that the Kremlin was aware of the rebel leader’s maneuvers at least 36 hours before he launched. The CIA also alerted the White House and Defense Department two days ahead of time to the probable insurgent outbreak. According to Zolotov, the information leaks came from the Prigozhin camp and were quite specific, since they placed the revolt between the 22nd and 25th of this month. The general suspects that the paramilitary chief could have been instigated by the West or perhaps his ambitions got the best of him and he wanted a higher position.
Yevgeni Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group: from Putin’s chef to enemy of the Russian Army
Prigozhin has been in a confrontation for months with Shoig and Gersimov. He proposed to kidnap them taking advantage of an inspection trip to the Russian battalions stationed in southern Ukraine. However, the plan was frustrated because the Defense Minister and his number two modified the trip after being warned by the security services, reported this Wednesday The Wall Street Journal in exclusive. This circumstance precipitated Prigozhin to accelerate his movements in a kind of flight forward with a series of wrong decisions, the occupation of Rostov and its military quartering, followed by the march towards Moscow, perhaps certain that there would be supporters to support him in the military structure. defense. The mercenary chief himself bragged on Saturday in Rostov that he had put the minister and the top military commander to flight, but without offering other details. Shoig and Gersimov visited the troops on Monday, once the rebellion had been completely deactivated.
The kidnapping attempt will confirm that Prigozhin’s target not consist in bringing down Putin, but to take revenge on a military leadership whose inefficiency has attributed all the errors of the invasion and blamed for the death of thousands of its mercenaries. The veteran leader recently filmed himself surrounded by the corpses of paramilitaries and promised that he would do justice. The video was once again intended to criticize the Defense Ministry and shake up the networks of Russian propagandists who consider Shoig weak and incompetent. The minister has responded on occasions by harassing the mercenaries, whom he made suffer during the capture of Bakhmut due to a lack of ammunition.
Nothing is known about Prigozhin since the Belarusian president, Alexnder Lukashenko, announced on Tuesday that he is already in Minsk to fulfill his exile agreement with the Kremlin. According to some sources, it remains practically locked in highly secure, windowless accommodation for fear of being killed.
Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Belarusian president under Putin’s long shadow
Meanwhile, the Government has not wasted time. He has taken over much of Wagner’s war material and seems ready to take control of a vast business that moves huge amounts of money in Africa and the East. The Kremlin has communicated to the governments of Mali and the Central African Republic that its security services with Wagner will continue unaltered, but without Prigozhin’s leadership. according to The Wall Street Journalthe deputy foreign minister also flew to Damascus to tell Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that the company will no longer operate independently.
Filed Under: War in Ukraine Russia
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