2023-06-28 18:16:17
Are the American services playing with the nerves of the Russians? Since Yevgueni Prigojine launched his mutiny last Saturday, revelations have followed in the American press on the preparations for this rebellion. They cast doubt on the permeability of Russia to American intelligence, but also on the competence of the Russian services, even on the loyalty of a leading Russian general.
Latest, an article from Wall Street Journal revealed on Wednesday, with testimony from “Western officials” in support, that Yevgeny Prigojine’s initial plan was to capture Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Valeri Guerassimov, but that the FSB (the Russian security services) would have uncovered this plot two days before the date chosen for his execution, forcing him to “improvise an alternative plan”. The article adds that Western intelligence agencies had also discovered Prigozhin’s plans thanks to “ electronic communications interceptions and satellite imagery ».
American suspicions since mid-June
The first reports of prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s plans by Western intelligence appeared on June 24 in an article from Washington Post. According to “several American officials”the American intelligence agencies would have obtained as early as mid-June “information indicating that the leader of the Wagner Group mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigojine, was preparing an armed action against the Russian military authorities”, with whom he had been in open conflict for months. According to these sources, US intelligence did not have clear knowledge of the exact nature of these plans or their « timing » until ” shortly before “ the outbreak of the mutiny, but would however have informed the White House that ” something “ was being prepared.
Other major information published in this article: Vladimir Putin himself would have been informed that Yevgueni Prigojine “prepared something”. If the American spies do not know precisely when the Russian president would have been informed, a source of the Washington Post questioned on June 24 affirmed that he would have been ” without a doubt “ the day before at the latest.
Three days later, on June 27, an article from New York Times citing “American officials” indicated that Sergei Surovikin, one of the most powerful generals of the Russian army, would have had “advanced knowledge” of Yevgeny Prigojine’s rebellion project. These officials have since sought to find out whether General Sergei Surovikin, towards whom Yevgeny Prigojine had expressed his sympathies in the fall of 2022, offered his assistance to the mutiny of the Wagner group.
What to raise suspicions in Moscow
This information, if true, is enough to fuel a certain paranoia in Vladimir Putin and among the Russian elite. “Obviously the US intelligence community has decided to mess up Russia! », smiles Olivier Schmitt, professor at the Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark, that these revelations are necessarily organized – which does not necessarily mean that they are false. “It is no coincidence that this information reveals internal dissension. This makes it possible to point the finger at the weakness of the Russian state, and to feed tensions in the Russian politico-military elite. »
The fact that American intelligence had knowledge of the preparations for an action by Yevgeny Prigojine a week before he began his mutiny would indeed signal the vulnerability of the Russian army to American spies and electronic intelligence means – while cruelly highlighting the failure of Russian intelligence to prevent this rebellion. “If I were the boss of Russian counter-intelligence, I would be asking myself a lot of questions right now,” adds Olivier Schmitt.
Vladimir Putin’s inaction further indicates, according to a source in the Washington Post, “a lack of coordination at the top of the Russian government”as well as “possible internal rivalries”. It is also likely to alarm the Russian elites about the inability of the president to play his role as arbiter of the system, he who neglected, for months, to intervene in this toxic rivalry between Yevgueni Prigojine and the Minister of the defence, Sergei Shoigu. A rivalry which, by dint of escalating, ended up degenerating into armed rebellion.
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