NYT: Surovikin Could Have Been Involved In Prigozhin's Conspiracy

The Russian general knew in advance about the preparation of a military mutiny.

General Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of the Russian invasion force in Ukraine, knew in advance that Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was planning a military mutiny.

The New York Times reports.

US intelligence sources are trying to figure out if Surovikin 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 defences across the battle lines after Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year, analysts say. He was replaced as top commander in January, but he retained influence over the conduct of military operations and is still popular among the troops.

US officials also said there were indications that other Russian generals may have also supported Prigozhin's attempt to forcedly replace the leadership of the Defence Ministry. Current and former US officials have said that Prigozhin would not have rebelled if he did not believe that other people in power would come to his aid.

The officials say that Putin must now decide whether he believes General Surovikin helped Prigozhin and how he should react. The FSB announced that it was dropping criminal charges against Prigozhin and members of his force. But if Putin discovers evidence that General Surovikin helped Prigozhin more directly, officials and analysts say he will have no choice but to remove him from command.

Some former officials say Putin may decide to keep General Surovikin if he decides he had some idea of Prigozhin but didn't help him. For now, analysts said, Putin seems intent on pinning the mutiny solely on Prigozhin.

Senior US officials suggest that an alliance between General Surovikin and Prigozhin may 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 data. They emphasized 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.

However, American officials are interested in spreading information that undermines the authority of General Surovikin, whom they consider more competent and ruthless than other members of the command. His removal would undoubtedly benefit Ukraine, whose Western-backed troops are pushing a new counteroffensive that is meant to try to win back territory seized by Moscow.

Survikin's position during the mutiny

General Surovikin spoke out against the mutiny on Friday in a video urging Russian troops in Ukraine to hold their ground and not join the uprising.

“I urge you to stop,” General 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.” According to the former official, General Surovikin's body language indicates that he is uncomfortable with condemning a former ally who shared his views on the Russian military leadership.

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 Mr Prigozhin in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner fighters seized military facilities.

“There were 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,” Mr McFaul said. “There are armed guards everywhere in Russia, and suddenly, there’s no one around to do anything?”

Independent experts, as well as representatives of the US and its allies, said Prigozhin seemed to believe that a significant part of the Russian army would side with him when his column moved on Moscow.

Prigozhin and Surovikin

Prigozhin worked with General Surovikin during the Russian military intervention in Syria and called him the most capable commander in the Russian army. Former officials said General Surovikin did not support Putin's removal from power, but appeared to agree with Mr Prigozhin that Mr Shoigu and General Gerasimov needed to be relieved of duty.

General Surovikin and Prigozhin have repeatedly criticized Shoigu and General 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 General Surovikin and Mr Prigozhin for Russia’s few successes.

In the case of General Surovikin, 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 communications intercepts, US officials concluded that a frustrated General Surovikin represented a hard-line faction of generals intent on using the toughest tactics against Ukraine.

Similarly, Prigozhin's Wagner mercenaries achieved some success in taking the eastern city of Bakhmut after nine months of heavy fighting. US officials and military analysts say tens of thousands of soldiers died in the battles for Bakhmut, including Wagner mercenaries, former criminals who received little training before they were sent to the war. Prigozhin frequently complained that senior Russian defense and military officials were not supplying his troops with enough weapons.

A change of generals characterized the entire Russian military campaign in Ukraine.Last fall, when General 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. General Surovikin did not last much longer, but performed far better during his weeks at the helm.

Nevertheless, by January, General Surovikin was demoted, and Putin handed direct command of the war to General Gerasimov, who promised to put Russian forces back on the offensive. General Surovikin’s demotion, military and Russian analysts say, was widely viewed as a blow to Prigozhin.

Charter97.org reported the leader of the Wagnerites, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced the start of a military coup. On June 24, Wagner troops took Rostov-on-Don and marched through the Rostov, Voronezh and Lipetsk regions of the Russian Federation. Wagner troops with armoured vehicles entered the Moscow region and approached a distance of 200 km to Moscow, after which Prigozhin ordered a retreat. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Prigozhin had been acquitted of a criminal charge of rebellion and would live in Belarus.