He claims to have the inside scoop on how Western intelligence agencies knew in advance that Prigozhin was going full Benedict Arnold, but is so naive that he did not realize he was being fed a fairy tale.
The Washington Post and the New York Times are widely believed to act as public relations outlets for U.S. intel agencies. What the government wants to get out to the public, without agency responsibility, it leaks to its favorite outlet and it gets printed. It is not unreasonable that these publications ger their info from someone known to be from an agency.
The fact that the CIA briefed the Gang of Eight in Congress on Prigozhin’s planned uprising two days prior....
The WSJ article states CIA and congressional knowledge of the plan two days prior to liftoff.
Western officials said they believe Prigozhin had communicated his intentions to senior military officers, possibly including Gen. Sergei Surovikin, commander of the Russian aerospace force. It couldn’t be determined whether Surovikin passed this information on to the FSB, or how the agency found out about Prigozhin’s plans.
Here the WSJ article intel source appears to misdirect attention, claiming a lack of knowledge of how the FSB found out about Prigozhin's plans. Why make the effort to misdirect attention from GRU (actually the GU) to FSB? Putin had shitcanned FSB, and put GRU in charge of Ukraine intelligence matters over a year ago.
https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-gru-in-charge-ukraine-intel-after-fsb-failures-report-2022-5
Putin sacked the FSB and put the secretive GRU spy agency in charge of Ukraine intelligence after a string of failures, top Russian journalists sayBill Bostock
Business Insider
May 10, 2022, 6:37 AM CDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/24/us-intelligence-prigozhin-putin/
U.S. spies learned in mid-June Prigozhin was planning armed action in RussiaBy Ellen Nakashima and Shane Harris
Washington PostUpdated June 24, 2023 at 10:44 p.m. EDT
Published June 24, 203 at 9:09 p.m. EDT[Excerpt]
U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Putin also was informed that Prighozin was plotting something. And though it is not clear precisely when he was told, it was "definitely more than 24 hours ago," the first U.S. official said.
It remains unclear why Putin did not take action to thwart Prigozhin's takeover of the military command or his move on Moscow.
Here, Putin "definitely" knew "more than 24 hours" in advance.
The original founder of Wagner was a GRU officer, Dmitri Utkin. Prigozhin said Utkin was the master planner of the March for Justice. Virtually all Wagner officers were former GRU officers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PyQnjeJXtM&ab_channel=HistoryLegends
The Truth About Wagner's March on Moscow (Youtube)
one thing that left me wondering was the statement from Prigozhin the night of the insurrection our commander was behind the whole operation he's the best strategist in the world Dimitri Utkin.[...]
surprise surprise like we've seen in this video, I posted most of Wagner's commanders are also former officers of the GRU and this could explain why Prigozhin said our commander was behind the whole operation, he is the best strategist in the world, talking about the original Wagner Dmitry Utkin. And what do we know about him? Well Utkin served as the commander of the 700 Separate Special Detachment of the GRU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Utkin
Dmitry Valerievich Utkin; (born 11 June 1970) is a Ukrainian-born Russian army officer. He served as a special forces officer in the GRU, where he held the rank of lieutenant colonel. He is alleged to have founded the Wagner Group, with his own call-sign reportedly being Wagner. Utkin has received four Orders of Courage of Russia.
If Putin knew "at least" 24 hours in advance, he could have known since the master planner Utkin, formerly GRU, hatched the plans. Putin could have known the plans before Prigozhin. Assuming the March to Justice went according to plan, Prigozhin remained behind in Rostov and sent most of what he had for men on a parade down the highway to nowhere. Putin did not resist their advance. Rather, the Chechen special forces were dispatched to Rostov where Prigozhin was at. When they got into position, Lukashenko was connected to Prigozhin who had a come to Jesus moment.
It is possible that Prigozhin gave an oscar worthy performance on behalf Putin. That would explain why Prigozhin went to Belarus unharmed, and apparently nobody was charged. An equal explanation is that Prigozhin and Wagner are very popular in Russia. The Russian government did not desire to make martyrs. It was better to have Prigozhin go off into exile. Rather like the lack of prosecutions following the U.S. Civil War. Notable figures such as Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were indicted but never brought to trial.
There seems to be no good reason for the WSJ to speculate about the FSB when the GRU is all over Wagner. In recent days, Putin proclaimed that Wagner had been 100% a Russian government funded organization, the money coming out of the national budget. Wagner was never actually a private organization, but was actually a government organization budgeted under the Ministry of Defense.
As for Prigozhin's support, the vast majority of his officers were former GRU officers and they conspicuously boycotted the event. Maybe they were just patriotic, and maybe they were informed not to participate. It is at least cause to consider that the GRU knew what was going to happen.
When the CIA and the Gang of Eight knew of the planned action two days before it happened, and knew that the Russian government knew, they did not stop Prizozhin but may have speeded up the execution of his plan. In any case, while things appeared to be going well, and Prigozhin's parade proceeded without opposition, some numbnuts took to Agency self-congratulations about its intel and briefing the Gang of Eight in advance. And then Chechen special forces arrived around Rostov and Lukashenko made his phone call. And Mr. Numbnuts realized he had broken the first rule of Fight Club. At a minimum, the leak infers that the CIA, the Gang of Eight, and the President knew in advance of the plan and let it proceed wthout informing Prigozhin that the plan had been busted.
