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 Gen 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 Putin in his 23 years in power.
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.
US 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. 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.
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If Surovikin were involved in last weekend’s events, it would be the latest sign of the infighting that has characterised 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 Shoigu, the minister of defence, and Gen Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff.
But the infighting could also could define the Russian military’s future on the battlefield in Ukraine, as Western-backed troops push a new counteroffensive that is meant to try to win back territory.
Putin must now decide, officials say, whether he believes that 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 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 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.”
Senior US officials suggest that an alliance between Surovikin and Prigozhin could explain why Prigozhin is still alive, despite seizing a major Russian military hub and ordering an armed march on Moscow.
American officials and others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. They emphasised that much of what the United States and its allies know is preliminary. US officials have avoided discussing the rebellion publicly, out of fear of feeding Putin’s narrative that the unrest was orchestrated by the West.
Still, US officials have an interest in pushing out information that undermines the standing of Surovikin, whom they view as more competent and more ruthless than other members of the command. His removal would undoubtedly benefit Ukraine.
The Russian Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.
Surovikin spoke out against the rebellion as it became public on Friday, in a video that urged Russian troops in Ukraine to maintain their positions and not join the uprising.
“I urge you to stop,” Surovikin said in a message posted on Telegram. “The enemy is just waiting for the internal political situation to worsen in our country.”
But one former official called that message akin to “a hostage video.” Surovikin’s body language suggested he was uncomfortable denouncing a former ally, one who shared his view of the Russian military leadership, the former official said.
There were other signs of divided loyalties in the top ranks. Another Russian general – Lt Gen Vladimir Alekseyev – made his own video appeal, calling any actions against the Russian state a “stab in the back of the country and president.” But hours later, he surfaced in another video, chatting with Prigozhin in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner fighters seized military facilities.
“There were just too many weird things that happened that, in my mind, suggest there was collusion that we have not figured out yet,” Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, said in a phone interview.
“Think of how easy it was to take Rostov,” McFaul said. “There are armed guards everywhere in Russia, and suddenly, there’s no one around to do anything?”
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Independent experts, and U.S. and allied officials said that Prigozhin seemed to believe that large parts of Russia’s army would rally to his side as his convoy of 8,000 Wagner forces moved on Moscow.
Former officials said Surovikin did not support pushing Putin from power but appears to have agreed with Prigozhin that Shoigu and Gerasimov needed to be relieved of duty.
“Surovikin is a decorated general with a complex history,” said Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the Rand Corp. “He is said to be respected by the soldiers and viewed as competent.”
Surovikin and Prigozhin have both brushed up against Shoigu and Gerasimov over tactics used in Ukraine. While the Russian military’s overall performance in the war has been widely derided as underwhelming, analysts have credited Surovikin and Prigozhin for Russia’s few successes.
In Surovikin’s case, that limited success was the professionally managed withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, where they were nearly encircled last autumn and cut off from supplies. Based on communications intercepts, US officials concluded that a frustrated Surovikin represented a hard-line faction of generals intent on using the toughest tactics against Ukrainians.
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Similarly, Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries achieved some success in taking the eastern city of Bakhmut after a nine-month slog in which, by Prigozhin’s own count, some 20,000 Wagner troops were killed. US officials and military analysts say tens of thousands of troops died in the fight for Bakhmut, among them Wagner soldiers who were former convicts with little training before they were sent to war. Prigozhin frequently complained that senior Russian defence and military officials were not supplying his troops with enough weapons.
Russia’s entire military campaign in Ukraine has been characterised by a musical chairs of changing generals. Last autumn, when Surovikin was put in charge of the Russian army’s effort in Ukraine, he was the second man to get the job, replacing a general who had lasted barely a month. Surovikin did not last much longer, but performed far better during his weeks at the helm.
Nevertheless, by January, Surovikin was demoted, and Putin handed direct command of the war to Gerasimov, who promised to put Russian forces back on the offensive. Surovikin’s demotion, military and Russia analysts say, was widely viewed as a blow to Prigozhin.
– This article originally appeared in The New York Times.