Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin planned to capture the Russian military leadership and last weekend’s uprising was decided after Moscow secrets discovered his plan, The Wall Street Journal reported this Wednesday.
Citing Western sources, the newspaper describes that Prigozhin originally planned to capture Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valeri Gerasimov while visiting a border area with Ukraine, but Russian secret services discovered the plan two days before it was carried out.
Western intelligence agencies, the paper notes, were also aware of Leader Wagner’s plans and believed he had a chance for success, which fell apart when information about the conspiracy leaked out, leading to an improvisation of an alternative.
The Wall Street Journal points out that Western sources believe Prigozhin communicated his intentions to Russian general Sergei Surovikin, information also published by The New York Times and described as speculation by the Kremlin.
According to sources at the economic newspaper, Prigozhin had collected arms and ammunition and expected that part of the Russian armed forces would join the mutiny and also revolt against their commanders.
Learning of the flight about his plan, the head of the mercenary group changed plans and captured Rostov, a strategic city in southern Russia without resistance, before sending a column to Moscow, which was interrupted after negotiations brokered by the president of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashenko.
The agreement between the Kremlin and Prigozhin to contain the riot provided for the annulment of the criminal charge of armed rebellion against the leader of the Wagner group in exchange for his departure to Belarus, where he has been since Tuesday, according to Lukashenko .
Russian President Vladimir Putin also offered the mercenaries who rebelled alongside Prigozhin to go to the neighboring country, Moscow’s ally, or sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense or other Russian security services to subordinate themselves to the legal and official structures.
In his posts over the past few days, Prigozhin said publicly that his rebellion was not aimed at overthrowing Putin’s government, but to overthrow Shoigu and Gerasimov, whom he repeatedly accused of incompetence in leading the invasion of Ukraine, which started on February 24 last year. , and even high treason.
The Wagner group led the way from the beginning of the invasion and played a leading role in the capture of Bakhmut, in Donetsk province (east), in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine, at the cost of high casualties, amid of Prigozhin’s open accusations of lack of military support from Moscow.
Now believed to be in Belarus along with some of his mercenaries, Polish President Andrzej Duda reaffirmed today that the Wagner group’s presence in this country could pose “a potential threat” to neighboring states.
“It is difficult for us to exclude that the presence of the Wagner group in Belarus could pose a potential threat to Poland, which borders Belarus, a threat to Lithuania (…), as well as possibly to Latvia , which is also a neighboring country of Belarus,” Duda told journalists in Kiev, where he is making an unannounced visit today, along with his Lithuanian counterpart, Gitanas Nauseda.
Source: DN
