US Suspect Prigozhin prepared for military action against Russia

US intelligence officials informed senior military and administrative officials on Wednesday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, was preparing to take military action against senior Russian defense officials, according to officials familiar with the matter.

US intelligence agencies had clues days earlier that Mr Prigozhin was up to something and were working to refine that material into a completed assessment, officials said.

The information shows that the United States was aware of impending events in Russia, similar to how intelligence agencies had warned in late 2021 that Vladimir V. Putin was planning to invade Ukraine.

But unlike with the first invasion, when US officials released the intelligence and then released it to deter Putin from invading, intelligence agencies remained silent on Mr Prigozhin’s plans. US officials believed that if they spoke up, Mr Putin could accuse them of orchestrating a coup. And they clearly had little interest in helping Mr. Putin avoid having his support broken in major, embarrassing fashion.

In this case, the information that the long-running feud between Mr. Prigozhin, who got his start as “Putin’s chief” in St. Petersburg, and Russian defense officials was about to culminate in a conflict, was considered solid and alarming. Mr. Prigozhin is known for his brutality, and if he had managed to oust the officials, he would probably have been an unpredictable leader. And the possibility that a major nuclear-armed rival of the United States could descend into internal chaos presented a new set of risks.

While it’s not clear exactly when the United States first learned of the plot, intelligence officials held briefings with government and defense officials on Wednesday. On Thursday, as additional confirmation of the plot came in, intelligence officials notified a small group of congressional leaders, according to officials familiar with the briefings, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. By Friday night, Mr Prigozhin had dramatically escalated his feud and launched a march on Moscow that the Russian government described as an attempted coup. On Saturday, he recalled his fighters and agreed to flee to Belarus.

CNN reported earlier that the United States had informed congressional leaders of their concerns that Mr. Prigozhin was preparing to challenge Russia’s military leadership.

For years, Prigozhin hated Sergei K. Shoigu, the secretary of defense, and General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff of the Russian armed forces, and the feeling was mutual, US officials said. But it took the war in Ukraine, officials said earlier this year, for the animosity to come out, which Mr Prigozhin often expressed in ill-tempered posts on a social media platform, Telegram.

In recent months, intelligence officials have been monitoring the growing animosity between Mr Prigozhin and the leaders of the Russian Defense Ministry and have spent considerable time analyzing it.

The intelligence services concluded that it was a clear sign of the internal tensions caused by the war in Ukraine, a product of Russia’s struggle to adequately supply its troops.

It was an indication, one official said, of how badly the war was going for both Wagner and the regular army.

Intelligence reports released as part of the Discord leaks also showed that the United States had intercepted communications between senior Russian military leaders who were debating how to deal with Mr. Prigozhin’s constant demand for more ammunition.

In interviews leading up to the current crisis, U.S. officials said that not only Wagner’s troops were facing supply shortages, but the entire Russian military. Those problems have plagued the Russian military for months, but U.S. officials said earlier this week they were becoming more apparent as the Ukrainian counter-offensive began.

Mr. Putin may also have given Mr. Prigozhin the false belief that he could move beyond public criticism and take action against his military allies. During the battle for the city of Bakhmut, the US government judged that Mr. Putin was most likely ordering regular Russian units to reinforce Wagner’s forces.

After the capture of Bakhmut, the Russian Ministry of Defense took steps to reduce Wagner’s power. Russia forced all volunteers for its armed forces to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry. The move cut Wagner off recruits and meant that in order for the mercenaries to return to the battlefield in Ukraine, Prigozhin would have to subordinate his troops to the Defense Department, said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace .

Placing Wagner forces under Mr Shoigu’s control was “out of the question” for Mr Prigozhin, Ms Stanovaya said.

Much of Mr. Prigozhin’s tensions with the military had played out in public. He used interviews and Telegram messages to berate Mr. Shoigu and General Gerasimov, calling them incompetent and accusing them of misleading Mr. Putin about the progress of the war with Ukraine.

US officials admitted that Mr Prigozhin’s public complaints contained something theatrical, but that it was nevertheless useful to Mr Putin, who himself has privately criticized his military leadership for being too passive during the war in Ukraine.

Yet US officials concluded that Mr Prigozhin’s public statements were not verified by Mr Putin. His fight with the defense ministry, officials said earlier this year, was real, not political theater, fueled by the massive losses Russia had suffered in Bakhmut.

Mr. Prigozhin’s criticism went beyond an argument over needed supplies. He accused him that the military leadership was corrupt and incompetent. For their part, some military leaders envied his influence with Putin, US officials said earlier this year.

But it was only in recent days that intelligence officials received the first warnings that Mr Prigozhin might take action.

Officials said the intelligence community did not know what the results of Mr Prigozhin’s actions might be, but they were immediately concerned about the consequences it could have for control of Russia’s nuclear weapons. President Biden spoke in October about the dangers Mr Putin would pose if he felt cornered, saying the United States was looking for “exits” for Mr Putin.

Since Mr Prigozhin took action on Friday, US officials have been locked down and have said little publicly about his intentions or what they knew about events on the ground. Officials were wary, both because events moved quickly and because they did not want to give Mr. Putin any excuse to blame the West for Mr. Prigozhin’s actions. But several officials said they fully expected Putin to eventually say the uprising was the result of a foreign plot.

Mr. Prigozhin is being charged in the United States for his role in influencing the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald J. Trump.