Top Russian general knew about Wagner's mutiny beforehand, U.S. intelligence assesses

At least one senior Russian military official, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, had advance knowledge of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's plan to rebel against Russia's military leadership, The New York Times reported late Tuesday, citing U.S. intelligence relayed by U.S. officials. The U.S. is still trying to learn whether Surovikin, the well-respected former top commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, also helped plan Prigozhin's attempted mutiny last weekend.

"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 U.S. ambassador to Russia, told the Times.

Surovikin's involvement in Prigozhin's push to unseat Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of general staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov would signal a widening fracture in the top ranks of Russia's military as Russia's Ukraine war slogs on. "American officials also said there are signs that other Russian generals may also have supported" Prigozhin's Defense Ministry putsch, the Times reported.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has pinned all the blame on Prigozhin, will have to decide how to respond. "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."

Now, "American officials have an interest in pushing out information that undermines the standing of Gen. Surovikin, whom they view as more competent and more ruthless than other members of the command," the Times noted. "His removal would undoubtedly benefit Ukraine" on the battlefield.

But Putin's problems extend beyond Surovikin's potentially divided loyalties, Moscow-based analyst Boris Kagarlitsky told The Washington Post. As Wagner moved on Moscow, "there was so little support for the regime that it was really striking. The military didn't move. The police didn't move. People were just watching. Nobody rushed to the government offices to show support."

"For an already paranoid Russian president," Gabriel Gavin wrote at Politico, the fact that nobody seemed "prepared to man the barricades in defense of their dear leader" is one of "a dizzying array of questions to ponder late at night. How was Prigozhin able to take so much territory virtually unopposed? And, if they'd made it to Moscow, who from his inner circle would have been first to stab him in the back?"

"It is likely that Putin's suspicion of internal enemies and repression of dissenters will intensify — although they have consistently intensified without reason," Andrei Kolesnikov at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told the Post. Still, "the elite, despite the understanding that the system is weaker and alternative forces are possible, will consolidate around Putin, scared of him and his suspicion."

Putin may have survived last weekend's insurrection, Politico's Gavin wrote. But he should be very worried it "gave Russians and the world a glimpse of how, when the time is right, he might run out of luck."