Russia is investigating whether Prigozhin wanted to kidnap the defense minister and whether he had military support

The Russian Security Service (FSB) is investigating whether the head of the Wagner Group is Yevgeny Prigozhin planned the kidnapping of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, as the main reason for his frustrated rebellion. Leaks about the operation and analysis of the movements of the mercenary leader, who eventually accepted the order to withdraw when his column of 8,000 fighters was about two hundred kilometers from Moscow, suggest that the goal was to capture two top military officers. of the Kremlin when they inspected the troops stationed along the Ukrainian border.

The government is also trying to determine whether Prigozhin, as is becoming increasingly apparent, launched the rebellion last Friday confident that he would have the support of “an important part” of the military hierarchy and even oligarchs opposed to the president’s strategy. Vladimir Putin.

The data obtained by the Russian and American intelligence agencies also agrees with this he communicated his plans to several senior commanders. And, in fact, members of the US administration expressed The New York Times his certainty that the mercenary chief would not launch a rebellion against Moscow himself. No analyst can imagine how Prigozhin, a combat veteran, could have thought that a rebellion with only 8,000 men facing the Russian armed forces would materialize.

The general is among the suspects Sergey Surovikin, which was nicknamed the butcher of Syria or general Armageddon due to its extreme brutality. The 56-year-old and former commander of troops deployed in Ukraine, his whereabouts were unknown on Wednesday. It is assumed that the FSB was holding him for questioning. In addition to specifying whether he managed to learn of his former friend’s plans – the two became friends during the Syrian war – security forces must now find out to what extent he helped the rebellion or, instead, chose not to support it.

This possibility would open another, obviously more comfortable scenario for the Syrian butcher, but it would also prevent the overthrow and arrest of Putin. Surovikin is the deputy commander of operations in the invasion of Ukraine and is considered a national hero. In December, he was honored by the head of the Kremlin himself.

Prigogine failed in secrecy. The intelligence services benefited from internal leaks at their private company. The satellites also revealed an unusual concentration of Wagner members outside their bases and very close to the border. The US intercepted their communications. And as if all that wasn’t enough, it was known that in recent days he had accumulated ammunition, weapons, tanks, anti-aircraft defense systems – with which he would shoot down half a dozen combat helicopters that blocked his way to Rostov – and fuel for no apparent reason.

This was explained yesterday by the commander of the National Guard, Victor Zolotov The Kremlin was aware of the rebel leader’s maneuvers at least 36 hours before he launched. The CIA also warned the White House and the Defense Department two days ahead of time of a possible insurgent outbreak. According to Zolotov, the “leak of information” came from the “Prigozhin camp” and was “quite specific”, since they placed the rebellion between the 22nd and 25th of this month. The general suspects that the paramilitary commander could have been “incited” by the West, “or perhaps his ambitions got the better of him and he wanted a higher position.”

Prigozhin has been in conflict with Shoigu and Gerasimov for months. It was proposed to kidnap them using an inspection route to Russian battalions stationed in southern Ukraine. However, the plan was thwarted as the defense minister and his number two modified the trip after being alerted by security services, it was reported on Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal in the exclusive. This circumstance prompted Prigozhin to accelerate his movements in a kind of flight forward with a series of wrong decisions, the occupation of Rostov and his military settlement, followed by a march towards Moscow, perhaps certain that there would be supporters in the structure to support him. defense. The mercenary leader himself boasted in Rostov on Saturday that he had forced the minister and the supreme military commander to flee, but offered no other details. Shoigu and Gerasimov visited the troops on Monday, after the rebellion was completely defused.

An attempted kidnapping would confirm that Prigožin was a target it was not about overthrowing Putin, but to take revenge on the military leadership whose inefficiency she attributed all the mistakes of the invasion and blamed for the deaths of thousands of her mercenaries. The veteran leader recently filmed himself surrounded by the corpses of paramilitary troops and vowed to exact justice. The video was intended to once again criticize the Ministry of Defense and shake the networks of Russian propagandists who consider Shoigu weak and incompetent. The minister occasionally responded by mistreating the mercenaries, who suffered during the capture of Bakhmut for lack of ammunition.

Nothing has been known about Prigozhin since Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on Tuesday that he is already in Minsk to fulfill his exile deal with the Kremlin. According to some sources, it remains practical locked in high security accommodation with no windows for fear of being killed.

In the meantime, the government wasted no time. He has taken over much of Wagner’s war material and seems willing to take control of a huge business moving huge amounts of money to Africa and the East. The Kremlin has told the governments of Mali and the Central African Republic that its security services with Wagner will continue unchanged, 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 would no longer operate independently.