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Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin planned to seize two top Russian military
officials when he launched a short-lived mutiny on Saturday, the Wall Street
Journal reported on Wednesday, citing Western officials.

Prigozhin’s plot involved the capture of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and top
army general Valery Gerasimov when the pair visited a region along the border of
Ukraine, the WSJ wrote.



Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) learned of the plot two days before it
was due to take place, forcing Prigozhin to change his plans at the last minute
and launch a march towards Moscow instead, according to the report.

Wagner mercenaries took control of a key military base in the city of
Rostov-on-Don, and his troops were approaching the Russian capital when
Prigozhin called off his mutiny.

When asked about the WSJ report, two European security sources told CNN that
while it was likely Prigozhin would have expressed a desire to capture Russian
military leaders, there was no assessment as to whether he had a credible plan
to do so.

There has been speculation about the role of senor Russian commanders as the
mutiny got underway on Friday night. The New York Times, citing US officials who
it said were briefed on American intelligence, reported that the commander of
the Russian air force, Gen. Sergey Surovikin, “had advance knowledge of Yevgeny
Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership.”



Surovikin appealed to Prigozhin to halt the mutiny soon after it began, in a
video message that made it clear he sided with Putin.



Asked about the New York Times story, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:
“There will be now a lot of speculation and rumors surrounding these events. I
believe this is just another example of it.”

One European intelligence official told CNN that there were indications that top
Russian security officials had some knowledge of Prigozhin’s plans, and may not
have passed on information about them, preferring instead to see how they played
out. “They might have known, and might have not told about it, [or] known about
it and decided to help it succeed. There are some hints. There might have been
prior knowledge,” the official said.

Even though the mutiny failed, Putin prestige has been dented, the official
said. “If that is what factions wanted, then that is what they got.”



Viktor Zolotov, the director of Russia’s National Guard, claimed Monday that
senior Russian officials knew of Prigozhin’s plans for a rebellion because
people close to the Wagner boss had leaked them, Russian state media agency TASS
reported.

Zolotov also claimed the mutiny was “inspired by Western intelligence services”
because “they knew weeks in advance.”

Earlier this week, CNN reported that US intelligence officials gathered a
detailed and accurate picture of Prigozhin’s plans leading up to his short-lived
rebellion, including where and how Wagner was planning to advance.

But, according to sources familiar with the matter, the intelligence was so
closely held that it was shared only with select allies, including senior
British officials, and not at the broader NATO level.

Prigozhin’s spectacular falling-out with Moscow’s high command appears to have
stemmed from a declaration by the Russian Ministry of Defense that it would
employ Wagner’s contractors directly. The move would essentially have dissolved
Prigozhin’s lucrative operations in Russia.

Prigozhin arrived in Belarus Tuesday, the country’s President Alexander
Lukashenko said. Russia says Lukashenko brokered the deal that ended the
rebellion.

CNN’s Luke McGee, Nick Paton Walsh and Tim Lister contributed to this story

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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu hosted Cuba’s Minister of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces, Gen. Alvaro Lopez Miera, ion Tuesday in what appears
to be his first public meeting with a foreign official after the Wagner
mercenary group’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a brief armed rebellion and
demanded his dismissal.



The meeting with the Cuban military delegation, reported by Russian state media,
is another signal of the two countries’ close relationship amid the Russian
invasion of Ukraine. Shoigu called Cuba its “key alley” in the Caribbean while
announcing the two governments were planning to develop “military-technical
cooperation projects,” the Russian official news agency Tass reported.

“Cuba has always been and continues to be Russia’s key ally in the region. Our
Cuban friends have confirmed their attitude toward our country by demonstrating
a complete understanding of the goals of the special military operation in
Ukraine,” he said in on-camera remarks released by the Ministry of Defense.

The Cuban general, which is under U.S. sanctions for his role in crushing
anti-government protests in July 2021, said the United States’ “intention to
continue the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders... forced Russia to launch a
special military operation. In this context, Russia plays a leading role in the
fight against fascism.”




Prigozhin’s rivalry with Shoigu was behind the Wagner Group’s move to seize a
military headquarters in southern Russia and march towards Moscow on Saturday.
But Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, quickly ended the mutiny with a deal to
send Prigozhin and his mercenaries to neighboring Belarus.



Cuba’s leadership seems to have been concerned about the chaotic events. Cuba’s
handpicked president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, a frequent social media user, remained
silent most of Saturday and waited until news of the deal to tweet his
“solidarity of the people and government of Cuba to the esteemed President
Putin.”

A flurry of recent trips of diplomats, military and security officials between
Havana and Moscow after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in
February last year have consolidated the close partnership, and several business
deals have been announced, though they have yet to yield concrete results.

Earlier this year, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai
Patrushev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the speaker of the State Duma,
Vyacheslav Volodin, visited Cuba.

Earlier this month, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero met with Putin during an
11-day trip to Russia in which Russian officials promised to continue supplying
oil to the island. And the Russian president gave the Order of Friendship medal
to Gen. Lopez Miera.

©2023 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.




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