Russian General Knows About Prigozhin Uprising Plans, US Officials Say

A senior Russian general had prior 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 raised questions about what support the mercenary leader has within the top ranks.

Officials said they were trying to learn whether General Sergei Surovikin, Russia's former supreme 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 defenses across the battle lines after last year's Ukrainian counterattack, analysts say. He was replaced as commander-in-chief in January but retains influence over war operations and remains popular with troops.

American officials also said there were signs that other Russian generals might also support Prigozhin's efforts to forcibly change the leadership of the Ministry of Defense. Current and former US officials say Prigozhin would not launch his rebellion unless he believed that someone else in a position of power would come to his aid.

If General Surovikin is implicated 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 split between Prigozhin's and Mr. Two of Putin's senior military advisers: Sergei K. Shoigu, minister of defense, and General Valery V. Gerasimov, chief of the general staff.

Mr Putin must now decide, officials say, whether he believes General Surovikin is helping Mr Prigozhin and how he should respond.

On Tuesday, Russia's domestic intelligence agency said it was dropping criminal charges of “armed rebellion” against Prigozhin and members of his squad. But if Mr. Putin finds evidence that General Surovikin was more directly assisting Mr. Prigozhin, he will have little choice but to remove him from his command, officials and analysts say.

Several former officials said that Mr. Putin could decide to keep General Surovikin, if he concluded that he knew what Mr. Prigozhin had planned but did not help him. For now, analysts say, Mr. Putin seems intent on pinning the mutiny on only Mr. Prigozhin.

“Putin is reluctant to change people,” said Alexander Baunov, senior research fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “But if the secret services put files on Putin's desk and if some of the files involve Surovikin, that could change.”

Senior American officials argue that the alliance between General Surovikin and Mr Prigozhin may explain why Mr Prigozhin is still alive, despite capturing a major Russian military center and ordering an armed march on Moscow.

American officials and others interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. They stressed that most of what the United States and its allies know is preliminary. US officials have avoided discussing the uprising publicly, for fear of feeding Putin's narrative that the unrest was orchestrated by the West.

Still, American officials had an interest in spreading information that undermined the position of General Surovikin, whom they saw as more competent and ruthless than the rest of the command. His removal is sure to benefit Ukraine, whose Western-backed forces are pushing for a fresh counteroffensive meant to try to win back territory captured by Moscow.

The Russian Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.

General Surovikin spoke out against the uprising when it was announced on Friday, in a video urging Russian troops in Ukraine to defend their positions and not join the uprising.

“I urge you to stop,” General Surovikin said in a message posted on Telegram. “The enemy is only waiting for the internal political situation to worsen in our country.”

But a former official called the message similar to a “hostage video”. General Surovikin's body language indicated he was uncomfortable denouncing his former ally, who shared his views on Russia's military leadership, the former official said.

There are other signs of divided loyalty in the top ranks. Another Russian general – Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev – made his own video call, calling any action against the Russian state “a stab in the back of the country and the president”. But hours later, he appears in another video, chatting with Prigozhin in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner fighters have captured a military facility.

“There are too many strange things going on, to my mind, indicating collusion that we don't know about yet,” Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, said in a telephone interview.

“Think how easy it would be to take Rostov,” said Mr. McFaul. “There are armed guards everywhere in Russia, and suddenly, nobody is doing anything?”

Independent experts, and US and allied officials say that Prigozhin appears to believe that the bulk of Russian troops will rally to his side as his convoy moves towards Moscow.

Mr Prigozhin had worked with General Surovikin during the Russian military intervention in Syria, and described him as the most capable commander in the Russian army. The former official said General Surovikin was not in favor of pushing Putin from power but appeared to have agreed with Mr Prigozhin that Mr Shoigu and General Gerasimov needed to be relieved of duty.

“Surovikin is an honored general with a complicated history,” said Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. “He was said to be respected by soldiers and seen as competent.”

General Surovikin and Mr. Prigozhin both opposed Mr. Shoigu and General Gerasimov because of the tactics used in Ukraine. While the Russian military's overall performance in the war was widely derided as underwhelming, analysts praised General Surovikin and Mr. Prigozhin for Russia's little success.

In General Surovikin's case, that limited success was the professionally managed withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, where they were nearly encircled last fall and cut off from supplies. Based on intercepted communications, US officials concluded that a frustrated General Surovikin represented a hardline faction of generals intent on using the toughest tactics against Ukraine.

Similarly, Lord Prigozhin's Wagner mercenary army achieved some success in capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut after nine months of hard work in which, by Mr Prigozhin's own calculation, around 20,000 Wagner soldiers were killed. US officials and military analysts say tens of thousands of troops died fighting for Bakhmut, among them Wagner soldiers who were ex-convicts with little training before they were sent into battle. Mr. Prigozhin often complains that senior Russian military and defense officials are not supplying his troops with enough weapons.

The entire Russian military campaign in Ukraine was marked by a change in the general's chair. Last fall, when Gen. Surovikin was assigned to the Russian Army's efforts in Ukraine, he was the second person to get the job, replacing a general who had only lasted barely a month. General Surovikin did not last much longer, but performed much better during the weeks of his leadership.

Nevertheless, in January, General Surovikin was demoted, and Putin handed over direct command of the war to General Gerasimov, who promised to return Russian troops to the offensive. General Surovikin's demotion, say military and Russian analysts, is widely seen as a blow to Prigozhin.