US suspected Prigozhin was preparing to take military action against Russia

American intelligence officials briefed senior military and administration 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, Report informs via the New York Times.

US spy agencies had indications days earlier that Prigozhin was planning something and worked to refine that material into a finished 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 Putin was planning to invade Ukraine.

But unlike with the initial invasion, when US officials declassified the intelligence and then released it to try to deter Putin from invading, intelligence agencies kept silent about Prigozhin’s plans. US officials felt that if they said anything, Putin could accuse them of orchestrating a coup. And they clearly had little interest in helping Putin avoid a major, embarrassing fracturing of his support.

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

While it is not clear exactly when the United States first learned of the plot, intelligence officials conducted briefings on Wednesday with administration and defense officials. On Thursday, as additional confirmation of the plot came in, intelligence officials informed a narrow 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, Prigozhin had dramatically escalated his feud, launching a march on Moscow that the Russian government described as an attempted coup. On Saturday, he called his fighters off and agreed to flee to Belarus.

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