By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, 7/7/23

Two weeks since the bizarre events in Russia on the weekend of June 23-25 there still remain different interpretations of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s 36-hour adventure on the road to Moscow and its aftermath.

Was it a genuine mutiny or coup attempt? Was he working with Western or Ukrainian intelligence?  What is Prizgozhin ‘s and the Wagner group’s future? And, most importantly, why did he do it?

The drama ended when Prigozhin called off his march on the capital, turning around his column of 4,000 or so Wagner men. With Russian special forces in Moscow arrayed to meet him at the city gates, and Chechen forces headed to Rostov-on Don, which he partially occupied, reason took hold as Prigozhin realized death awaited him and his men.

The anguish in London and Washington was palpable. They thought they were on the verge of achieving the principle aim of their war against Russia: overthrowing Vladimir Putin. They are still pushing the line that Putin was irrevocably weakened by the event and that Russia is a dangerously unstable country.

The Deal

The president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, worked out a deal to end the crisis. In return Russia – for the moment anyway – dropped its criminal charges of mutiny against Prigozhin. 

He lost his post and was reportedly exiled to Belarus. But now there are even doubts about that. Lukashenko said on Thursday that Prigozhin is a “free man.” He said, “Maybe he went to Moscow, maybe somewhere else, but he is not on the territory of Belarus.”

The New York Times reported on the same day that Prigozhin may be using a look-alike:

“A Pentagon official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation later confirmed that Mr. Prigozhin had been in Russia, between Moscow and St. Petersburg, during most of the period since the mutiny. The official said it was unclear if Mr. Prigozhin had ever gone to Belarus because he apparently uses body doubles to mask his movements.”

On his MOATS TV show, George Galloway on June 25 aired a brief video of a man who looked exactly like Prigozhin sleeping on a park bench in Minsk the day after the rebellion ended. (One would think Prigozhin could afford to book his double a hotel room, if it was indeed his double.)

Prigozhin was not offered amnesty as had the Wagner troops that took part in the mutiny. Those who didn’t participate  were given the option of signing contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense. Prigozhin being allowed to roam free in Russia without amnesty throws his status and his future into confusion.

Even if he is being allowed his freedom, his main demands in the mutiny of sacking Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov have not so far succeeded.

Was It a Coup Attempt?

Given that Prigozhin was overtly only seeking Shoigu and Gerasimov’s heads, and not Putin’s, it can be argued that his gambit was not an attempt to overthrow the entire government.

Geopolitical analyst Alexander Mercouris on The Duran channel, on the other hand, contends that if he had gotten as far as seizing the Defense Ministry, which Mercouris says was out of the question, he would have effectively seized power from Putin.

Former U.S. Marines counterintelligence office Scott Ritter told Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s podcast that it was treason and a clear coup attempt. He said Prigozhin had set up cells in Moscow to take part in the overthrow but Russia security services broke them up before they could act.

There are analysts who argue that this was not a coup attempt at all. Retired U.S. Col. Douglas MacGregor, a fierce critic of Washington’s Ukraine policy, believes Prigozhin was instead sending Putin a message to conduct the war in Ukraine more forcefully.

For what it’s worth, on the first day of the move towards Moscow Prigozhin insisted the action was not “a military coup, but a march of justice.”

Putin himself called Prigozhin’s action many things: a “grave crime,” “an armed mutiny,” “blackmail,” “betrayal,” “terrorism,” an “internal revolt “ and “a knife in the back of our country and our people.”

He also called it “treason.” Putin said:

“Inflated ambitions and personal interests have led to treason – treason against our country, our people and the common cause which Wagner Group soldiers and commanders were fighting and dying for shoulder to shoulder, together with our other units and troops.”

The Surovikin Mystery

Western media uniformly presented the episode as the greatest threat to Putin’s government since he took office as president on New Year’s Eve 1999. The New York Times, unsceptically quoted U.S. intelligence officials, reporting that Gen. Sergei Surovikin, deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, knew about the coup attempt in advance but did nothing to stop it, implying that he was in on it.

CNN reported on June 30 that Surovikin was a “V.I.P. member of Wagner.” Surovikin was replaced in January by Gerasimov as overall commander of forces in Ukraine.

The anti-Putin, English language Moscow Times, published an unconfirmed report that Surovikin was arrested. The Associated Press reported the same, quoting unnamed sources.

But as The Wall Street Journal reported: “Surovikin was the first senior commander to condemn the plot … and urge Prigozhin to stop his men. Forces under Surovikin’s command carried out airstrikes on the Wagner column, the only such attack by regular troops against the insurrectionists.”

Why Did He Do It?

Prigozhin had launched several highly public attacks over the previous months on Shoigu and Gerasimov, accusing them of corruption and not providing enough ammunition for Wagner’s battle in Bakhmut.

Prigozhin said this led to the unnecessary deaths of scores of his fighters. Moscow tolerated his antics, even after Wagner completed its takeover of Bakhmut in May.

Prigozhin’s rhetoric racheted up the day before his revolt when he said Russian motives for intervention in Ukraine were bogus. He said Ukraine was not planning an offensive on Donbass in February 2022 and that demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine were just excuses. It sounded like words from officials in Kiev, London or Washington.

There appear to have been several motives to Prigozhin’s reckless move. The first was an apparently insane plan to arrive at the Ministry of Defense and force the removal of Shoigu and Gerasimov.

A second motive appeared to be a lust for power touching on megalomania. The former chef and caterer (to Putin and the MOD) was put in charge of the Wagner mercenary organization though he had zero military experience.

(Prigozhin also ran the Internet Research Agency, which bought $100,000 in Facebook ads during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and figured prominently in the Russiagate fraud.)

Putin said last week that Prigozhin’s $1 billion contract to feed the Russian military had been cancelled.

Wagner was set up as a private military organization in 2014 to legally avoid the oversight and regulation of regular Russian military branches, though it was equipped and funded by the Ministry of Defense, Putin confirmed in public remarks last Monday.

As a legally separate entity from the Russian government, Wagner troops operated in Crimea and in defense of Donbass starting in 2014 (without the need of official Russian military intervention) against the Kiev coup government’s military assault on Donbass after it declared independence from Ukraine.

No doubt partly because they were fed up with Prigozhin’s constant criticisms, the Ministry of Defense set a July 1 deadline for Wagner to be absorbed into the MOD, making them legally part of the Russian military. Prigozhin knew this would end his career as head of the Wagner force, which is being dissolved.

That was likely the prime motive, especially the timing for his revolt. This, combined with his bravado and hatred of Shoigu and Gerasimov, led Prigozhin on a road to ruin, though he thought he was headed to Moscow.

There was yet another factor driving Prigozhin, according to MacGregor.

The most strident criticism of Putin in Russia is that he’s been too soft on Ukraine, that the military operation has been too careful. These critics want to see Russia smash through southern Ukraine to take Odessa and reach the Romania border, if not take Kiev itself.

(This may be easier said than done, given NATO’s equipping and training of the Ukrainian army, the increased Russian and civilian casualties that would be involved and the stress it would put on Russian armaments production.)

According to MacGregor, among these hard-line critics of the go-slow war is Prigozhin. But rather than openly criticizing Putin for this state of affairs, Prigozhin zeroed in on Shoigu and Gerasimov, blaming them for the piecemeal military strategy.

MacGregor told Galloway on June 25, the day the rebellion died:

“I wouldn’t call it a coup. I think what happened is that Mr. Prigozhin … who is a well-known blowhard and has frequently said outrageous things, reached a conclusion that I think a lot of people in the senior ranks of the Russian army have reached, and that is … first, that this war has dragged on too long, and they want Putin to take decisive action to end it. And secondly, I think the fear is the United States will be tempted to intervene in Western Ukraine with its Polish allies, and others potentially, if this does not come to an end. …

Both Prigozhin and Wagner are very popular with the Russian people. They see him as the kind of aggressive leader they want on the battlefield in this war with Ukraine. So I expect now what we will see is a very powerful offensive unleashed against the Ukrainians. And secondly I think you are going to see some changes at the top of the command structure. I would expect Gen. Surovikin to rise as a result of this.”

This was before reports of Surovikin’s “arrest.”

Mercouris, on the other hand, said Putin had

“lanced the boil that Prigozhin and Wagner represented, and it has probably once and for all banished any idea on the part of the nationalist fringe — the people who are hostile for various reasons to Gerismov and Shoigu and other figures within the Russian Defense Ministry – … that they can force Putin’s hand through any kind of political agitation.”

At press time, Gerasimov and Shoigu were still in their posts.

Was He Working for Foreign Intelligence?

Because Prigozhin appeared to be fulfilling the West’s aims there has been speculation he may have been working with either American, British or Ukrainian intelligence, or all of the above.

Ritter stated categorically on his Substack page and in podcast interviews that Prigozhin was working with foreign intelligence: “Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind — Yevgeny Prigozhin has become a witting agent of Ukraine and the intelligence services of the collective West.” He wrote:

“Prigozhin’s antics, which were played out in intimate detail on social media, caught the attention of pro-Ukrainian information warfare specialists, who began promoting the narrative of Prigozhin—a former convict with zero political experience—assuming a leadership position in Russia. Prigozhin himself seemed to feed off this notion. While publicly denying any such ambition, Prigozhin continued his public trolling of Shoigu and Gerasimov. …

At some point in time Prigozhin’s antics caught the attention of Ukrainian intelligence, and their British and US counterparts. The narcissistic need for attention, coupled with grandiose notions of self-importance, made Prigozhin an ideal candidate for recruitment by a hostile foreign intelligence service. A financial component—basic greed—can be added to this behavioral model as well.”

Ritter then added this qualifier: “The collusion between Prigozhin and the Ukrainians, while unproven at this juncture, appears obvious in retrospect.”

The New York Times and other outlets reported that U.S. intelligence was aware of Prigozhin’s plans to rebel days in advance. “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,” the Times reported.

Despite this, the U.S. did not alert Russia to what they knew, which could have perhaps prevented a nuclear crisis, as Ritter said in a Consortium News piece on Monday.

Perhaps most significantly, the so-called Discord leaks of U.S. intelligence revealed that Prigozhin was prepared to give Ukraine intelligence Russian troop positions in exchange for calling off its defense of Bakhmut.

Long before the mutiny, The Washington Post reported on May 14:

“Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.”

The U.S. raised suspicions by going out of its way to say it had nothing to do with the revolt. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. ambassador in Moscow all made statements to that effect.

MacGregor disagreed that the former Wagner chief was in cahoots with Russia’s enemies.

He said: “I see no evidence that Mr. Prigozhin was made an agent by MI6 or the CIA or anybody else. Anybody who knows the Russians knows that any senior officer or commander or leader is surrounded by numerous FSB informants. The idea that he could have sold out even if he wanted to seems ludicrous.”

Ritter pointed out in his CN piece that the Russian government is investigating the matter.

If Prigozhin was indeed working for Western or Ukrainian intelligence they clearly did not get what they paid for.

Lessons

Putin addressing nation on June 26. (Kremlin.ru)

For Russia: Don’t repeat the mistake of hiring a private army.

Several analysts pointed to a 500-year old lesson from Niccolo Machiavelli that Russia ignored:

“Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful. …

I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these arms [i.e., mercenaries]. The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions; but if the captain [i.e., the leader of the mercenaries] is not skillful, you are ruined in the usual way [i.e., you will lose the war].”

MacGregor disputed the whole idea. He told Galloway:

“I reject the notion that these people are mercenaries. I would compare them to the French Foreign Legion. The French Foreign Legion consists of large numbers of non Frenchmen in many cases, but they have sworn allegiance to the French state and the French nation, and no one has fought harder and more loyally for France than the French Foreign Legion. I would say you have something very similar in the Wagner group.

These are still Russians overwhelmingly, but there are numbers of Serbs or some Germans or others in the group, and they too have sworn allegiance to the Russian state. And as far as we can tell, none of them thought that they were marching on Moscow to remove Putin. On the contrary, they saw themselves as going to Moscow to rescue Putin from what was widely considered bad advisors, bad councilors who have held up the Russian offensive and caused this war to drag out beyond the point of reason.”

Whether they were mercenaries or not, the Kremlin and the MOD tried to get away with a dodgy legal maneuver and it caused them international embarrassment and nearly a bloody civil conflict.

For the West: Wait until an operation is over before popping the corks. Cries about a Russian civil war being under way, such as tweets from former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, which blared that “The fight is now on. This is now a civil war,” blew up in their faces when Prigozhin turned tail.

The bigger lesson would be not to meddle in other nations’ internal affairs but that would be too much to ask.

The entire Russian nation had rallied around Putin, leaving him in a much stronger position, exposing the continuing line that Russia is now a dangerously unstable nation.

Western governments and pundits clearly suffered more embarrassment from this episode than Putin did.

But ideologues rarely learn any lessons.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe

Russia Matters, 7/14/23

At their summit in Vilnius, NATO allies approved highly-secretive defense plans that laid out which of the 31 member states would be called on to respond if an attack were to occur anywhere from the Arctic and Baltic Sea regions to the Mediterranean and Black Seas, AP reported. The new plans, which are reportedly more than 4,400 pages long, provide for NATO to have up to 300,000 troops ready to move to its eastern flank within 30 days. The number of forces deployed on this flank will increase to brigade level (4,000 troops) under the approved plans. The July 11-12 summit also saw NATO members agree to expand NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense, and set 2% of GDP as the floor, rather than ceiling, of their annual defense expenditures.

***

Meanwhile, the White House has announced it’s calling up 3,000 reserve soldiers for deployment to Europe. Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris discuss the move in the video below.

Link here.

The Levada Center, 7/7/23 (English translation via Google)

A point that stood out to me: even among youth and those who get their news from the internet rather than television, majorities still want Putin to remain president, though the majorities are smaller than those who are over 55 and get their news from television. – Natylie

The majority of respondents describe their attitude towards V. Putin as positively neutral. Two-thirds of those polled would like the incumbent head of state to be re-elected in 2024. Supporters of his re-election explain this by the fact that V. Putin “is pursuing the right policy,” “a good leader,” “for the people,” “there is no alternative to him.” Opponents of the re-election say that he “has been in office for a long time,” “I don’t like his policy,” “changes are needed.” According to the respondents, V. Putin expresses the interests of the “siloviki”, as well as “ordinary people”, “oligarchs” and the “middle class” .

With respect to the president, as before, positive-neutral assessments prevail. About a quarter (23%) of the respondents describe their attitude towards V. Putin as “sympathy”, another 19% as “admiration” – compared to last year, the share of such assessments has practically not changed. Another 12% of respondents speak of a “neutral, indifferent” attitude towards the president, about a third (31%) have nothing bad to say about him.

What words could you describe your attitude towards Vladimir Putin? (table)

	Nov.00	Nov.02	Nov.05	Mar.08	oct.11	Mar.13	Mar.14	Mar.15	Jul.16	apr.17	oct.19	Mar.20	Aug.21	May.22	Jun.23
Sympathy	31	37	32	41	24	18	31	37	29	32	24	20	21	25	23
Delight	4	5	4	9	3	2	6	10	8	10	8	9	8	19	19
Neutral, indifferent	eleven	9	eleven	10	17	22	15	10	17	17	15	16	16	eleven	12
Alert, expectant	eleven	6	5	2	7	10	6	5	4	6	8	9	7	4	5
Disgust	0	0	1	0	1	2	0	1	1	1	3	3	6	2	2
Antipathy	1	1	2	1	2	5	2	2	2	3	3	5	4	2	2
Can’t say anything bad about him	36	37	36	34	33	thirty	29	thirty	31	27	thirty	27	27	31	31
I can’t say anything good about him.	4	3	8	3	8	8	7	3	6	4	8	8	9	4	5
Difficult to answer	1	1	1	2	5	3	4	2	1	1	1	3	2	2	2

As in the past year, the majority of respondents would like to see V. Putin as president of Russia after 2024 – 68% of them (in May 2022 – 72%). A fifth of 20% (in May 2022 – 19%) would not want him to be re-elected as head of state.

Would you or would you not like to see Vladimir Putin as president of Russia after his current presidential term expires, after 2024? (table)

	oct.12	oct.13	nov.14	May.16	oct.16	May.17	Aug.17	may.18	Jul.19	Mar.20	Feb.21	sep.21	May.22	Jun.22
Would you like	34	33	58	60	63	66	67	51	54	46	48	47	72	68
Wouldn’t like	40	45	19	21	19	20	18	27	38	40	41	42	19	20
Difficult to answer	26	23	22	19	19	14	16	22	8	14	eleven	eleven	9	12

Most often, the desire to see V. Putin as president after the current term was said by respondents aged 55 and older (74% for remaining, and 17% against it), those who trust TV as the main source of information (86% vs. 8% ), the wealthiest Russians (72% vs. 17%) and those surveyed who believe that things in the country are going in the right direction (85% vs. 7%). For V. Putin to leave his post in 2024, respondents aged 18-24 were more likely to speak out (60% for staying, and 25% against it), readers of Internet publications (55% versus 31%), those , who barely have enough money to eat (66% vs. 22%), and those surveyed who believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction (34% vs. 55%).

Of those who want V. Putin to remain president after 2024, 29% of those surveyed express such a desire because he “leads the right policy, strengthens the state”, 20% because he is “a leader, a good president”, 17 each % – because he is “for the people, for stability” and “there is no one else, there is no alternative.”

The respondents, who do not want the incumbent head of state to be re-elected for the next term, name the following reasons: “he has been in office for a long time, they are tired of him and his rule” (23%), “they don’t like his policy, it is destroying the country, the introduction of pension reform, violation of constitution” (18%), “changes are needed, a change of power” (18%).

39% of respondents believe that V. Putin expresses the interests of the “siloviki” – this figure has not changed much in two years. 29% of respondents believe that he expresses the interests of “ordinary people” – the highest figure for all the time of observation. Another quarter (in August 2021 – 40%) believe that the head of state expresses the interests of the “oligarchs”. In addition, the proportion of respondents who believe that V. Putin defends the interests of the middle class has increased from 16% in 2021 to 24% this year.

What segments of the population are represented, in your opinion, by Vladimir Putin? (full table with dynamics)

	sep.00	Sep.01	dec.03	dec.05	oct.10	oct.11	Jul.13	Aug.14	Aug.16	oct.17	Mar.20	Aug.21	Jun.23
“Siloviki”: employees of special services, the army, the Ministry of Internal Affairs	39	39	33	41	34	38	41	39	35	41	37	40	39
“Ordinary people”: employees, workers, rural workers	18	17	23	18	20	17	eleven	13	14	17	16	17	29
“Oligarchs”, bankers, big businessmen	16	17	14	23	26	35	35	thirty	28	31	38	40	25
“Middle class”: people with incomes above average	19	19	24	21	27	25	24	22	20	23	18	16	24
Government officials, bureaucracy	14	16	15	22	24	25	thirty	24	22	31	28	29	22
“Director’s corps”: heads of large enterprises	13	13	10	13	18	27	23	19	19	25	17	14	13
Cultural and scientific elite	6	7	9	8	10	9	9	10	9	15	8	10	10
intelligentsia	9	6	eleven	6	10	9	8	9	8	12	7	9	10
Yeltsin’s inner circle, the “family”	19	18	13	14	eleven	13	14	9	8	10	8	12	9
Everyone without exception	9	eleven	15	10	7	10	12	14	17	17	9	6	7
“Lumpenov”: beggars, downtrodden people	3	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	2	2
Difficult to answer	16	18	12	eleven	13	eleven	10	15	14	12	13	eleven	eleven

METHODOLOGY

The all-Russian survey by the Levada Center was conducted on June 22–28, 2023, based on a representative all-Russian sample of the urban and rural population of 1,634 people aged 18 and over in 137 settlements, 50 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The study is conducted at the respondent’s home by a personal interview. The distribution of responses is given as a percentage of the total number.

The statistical error in a sample of 1600 people (with a probability of 0.95) does not exceed:

3.4% for indicators close to 50%

2.9% for indicators close to 25% / 75%

2.0% for indicators close to 10% / 90%

1.5% for indicators close to 5% / 95%

By John Helmer, Website, 7/2/23

John Helmer is a long-time journalist living in Moscow.

Russian regime change is war – it isn’t cricket.

Between the US, the UK, and Russia there have been regime-changing games for more than a century now. Thirty years ago Boris Yeltsin was their big hit. They have been bad losers since then. In cricketing terms, the Kremlin regime-changing plan of Alexei Navalny was a googly. The Yevgeny Prigozhin plan was a bouncer. Both have ended as ducks on the scoreboard [3].  

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns has telephoned [4] Sergei Naryshkin of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) to say Prigozhin wasn’t his batsman. In a public speech to a British foundation of twelfth men, Burns said the CIA doesn’t play cricket. “This is an internal Russian affair, in which the United States has had and will have no part,” he claimed [5]. 

If MI6 was planning and paying for these match failures, they need to pull stumps, leave the field. 

There are many Russians, however, who believe the Prigozhin affair, the dismantling of his business operations, and the associated clean-up of the Defense Ministry and Army, have upset President Vladimir Putin’s confidence that his campaign for re-election in the presidential election in six months’ time will be unopposed. The Russian sources point out the shock of the events of June 23-24 is visible on the president’s face. A minority of sources believes he will retire from the race after finding a reliable successor.

“Earlier my sense was he was a sure winner if he won the war,” a Moscow source says. “But the victory is not cleancut and not in sight. I’ve believed that escalation on the battlefield would be a prelude to his retirement and that he wanted to leave a legacy of ‘no compromise’ with the Americans. But then he failed on that by keeping the old economic policy-Central Bank team. Third, the war was a perfect opportunity for him to distance himself from the oligarchs and show clean hands. These are three political failures. He is going to be like [former Kazakh president for life, Nursultan] Nazarbayev now.”

In Russian public opinion polling over the past fortnight there is no evidence that voter confidence in Putin has been shaken; nor in the Russian General Staff’s direction of the battlefield. General Patience [6] has been growing in Russian public support.

According to the independent Moscow pollster Levada Centre [7], “in May, almost half of our respondents (45%) were sure that the conflict in Ukraine would last at least another year – since May 2022, their share has more than doubled. Another quarter see the end of the ‘special operation’ no sooner than in six months. Meanwhile, more than the rhetoric of Russian politicians, it is the course of events that has convinced them of this.” 

What has just happened is that confidence in battlefield victory has slipped as a result of the Wagner mutiny. There was public support for the victory in the Battle of Bakhmut, and the role Wagner was advertised to have played in that. Prigozhin destroyed this support by his actions, including the shooting-down of Russian Army aircraft and the killing of its Russian crews.

Levada pollsters were interviewing a nationwide sample from June 22 to 28, and in the results they have been able to track the immediate impact of the armed rebellion as it began, unfolded, collapsed, and resulted in the dismantling of Wagner, and the exposure of Prigozhin as an oligarch-sized crook. “The attitude towards E. Prigozhin during the survey decreased by half: from 58% on Thursday-Friday [June 22-23] to 30% by the beginning of the working week [June 26],” Levada reported [8] on June 29. “In the future, we can expect a further decline in the authority of E. Prigozhin.”

If, in the coming weeks, the Ukrainians commit their reserves, along with NATO weapons in stock, and they are defeated as thoroughly as their offensive in June, Russian public confidence will recover. So will the slip in Levada’s measurement of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s public rating.

The constant is public approval of the president, which is holding above the 80% level of a year ago, and the conviction that the war is the US and NATO’s doing. Defeat on the battlefield in the Ukraine is understood by Russians to be the defeat of the US and the NATO alliance. The first ever.

Levada publishes [9] some of its surveys and poll reviews in English. But in publication on the Centre’s website, many surveys are not translated into English at all. Those which are translated and published lag the Russian releases [10] by at least two weeks. 

 [11]

The latest Putin approval rating chart shows that between March and August of last year, the rating went from 82% to 83%, then dropped to 77% in September. It has revived since then to 83% in February, 82% in March, 81% in June. The Levada Centre has not released its latest measurement following the two Kremlin addresses and other speeches by the president in the wake of the mutiny.

Polling since then indicates that to Russians across the country the most persuasive leaders are Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. At the latter’s 76% approval mark, no Russian foreign minister has ever been so popular.

 [12]

Source: https://www.levada.ru/ [8]

By contrast, Defense Minister Shoigu says very little in public; General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff, says next to nothing at all. Public recognition of the latter is accordingly low, and Shoigu’s public rating much lower than Lavrov’s.

When they were the targets of Prigozhin’s public attacks in the last stages of the Bakhmut battle and then in the days preceding the mutiny, there was a marginal impact on Shoigu; none recorded for Gerasimov. Shoigu’s rating then slipped, according to Levada’s tracking, from 60% on June 23 to 48% on June 28.

 [13]

Source: https://www.levada.ru/ [8]

In the Levada polling, Shoigu’s approval rating has varied within a narrow range. The measurement of public support for the Army has been more constant over the sixteen months of the special military operation; the range reported by Levada has been from 81% in March 2022 to 83% in June 2023 [14].  

For tracking the public impact of the mutiny, Levada polled by direct face-to-face interviews at respondents’ homes across the country, with a total sample of 1,634 aged 18 or older in 137 localities in 50 regions, including Moscow and St Petersburg. The poll results have been summarised [15] this way. “The survey was conducted from June 22 to 28 and in the most general terms recorded the fluctuations in public opinion caused by the events of June 24. The breakdown of responses by dates – before and after the mutiny – shows that what happened hit the attitude of the respondents to S[ergei]. Shoigu and brought down the authority of E[vgeny]. Prigozhin in the eyes of Russians by double. If prior to Saturday’s events Prigozhin seemed to Russians to be a ‘fighter for the truth’, a ‘real leader’, a ‘patriot’, and a victorious general, then by the beginning of the working week [June 26] negative assessments began to prevail in his image: ‘he caused trouble’, ‘went against Russia’, ‘rushes to power’ – the quotes are taken from the answers to an open question. More than half of the respondents consider it permissible to use mercenaries and convicts in military operations. At the same time, against the background of the events of June 24, support for hiring mercenaries has decreased slightly compared to last year’s measurement.” 

Levada’s earlier polls have uncovered increasing acceptance on the part of most Russians that the war will be a protracted one; and at the same time also an increase in the numbers of Russians who favour more decisive action on the battlefield. Ukrainian attacks across the border in Belgorod and other regions, the drone attack on the Kremlin, and the Kakhovka dam flooding have intensified public anger at Kiev, the US, and NATO, and raised support for a major Russian offensive – a “big bang”.

“Society today is divided almost equally into two opposing camps. Some want ‘people to stop dying,’ relatives and friends to ‘stop being conscripted’, ‘not to be touched’ themselves, and for ‘all this to end sooner, no matter how.’ For others, however, ‘it is very important how things end,’ ‘if you have started, you might as well fight to the end,’ and in any case ‘the president (government, military) knows better’ – hence the fighting must go on. In May, the number of those in favour of continuing the special operation rose markedly and for the first time since August last year slightly exceeded the number of those in favour of peace talks. More and more people not only expect hostilities to last a long time, but also do not want them to end immediately [7].” 

“Anxiety remains diffuse, unfocused, often unspoken and not reflected on – positive moods still prevail. Anxious moods seem typical, first and foremost, for the most well-informed Russians. As they say, the less you know, the better you sleep. The companion of this anxiety is gradually increasing bitterness, which spills over into the focus groups: ‘why are we pulling our punches with them (Ukrainians, Europeans, Americans)’; ‘we’re still messing around with them’; ‘it’s time to go for the bang.’ Thus, the lobby for a ‘decisive response’ to the enemy is finding new supporters.” This was reported [7] by Levada in mid-June.

Prigozhin capitalised on this sentiment. He has now lost it.

The gainers are Putin and Lavrov. The Army is unaffected, and there is accordingly no political justification for the leading generals to appear in public. Their visibility on television and their remarks are of limited circulation in the press; of interest only to military intelligence services, war bloggers, and the propaganda agencies in London and Washington.

For this reason the outcome of the anti-corruption investigation of Prigozhin’s decade-long bribes and kickbacks at the Defense Ministry, and of Dmitry Utkin’s neo-Nazi associations [16],  will be muted.

What do people think of this article? I tend to think it’s serving two primary purposes. The first is to try to burnish the battered image of the CIA – characterizing it’s role is constructive and restraining. The second is to try to create some kind of plausible deniability regarding any stupid, stubborn or reckless thing Zelensky is doing or might do in the future – “Gosh, we don’t really know what our vassal in Kiev is doing or thinking at any given moment.” Which seems plausible. – Natylie

By William Arkin, Newsweek, 7/5/23

One of the biggest secrets of the Ukraine war is how much the CIA doesn’t know. The Agency is as uncertain about Volodymyr Zelensky’s thinking and intentions as it is about Vladimir Putin’s. And as the Russian leader faces his biggest challenge in the aftermath of a failed mutiny, the Agency is straining to understand what the two sides will do—because President Joe Biden has determined that the United States (and Kyiv) will not undertake any actions that might threaten Russia itself or the survival of the Russian state, lest Putin escalate the conflict and engulf all of Europe in a new World War. In exchange, it expects that the Kremlin won’t escalate the war beyond Ukraine or resort to the use of nuclear weapons.

America’s stance is under threat because the near-mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, raises the question as to whether Moscow has run out of options.

“Putin’s back is really against the wall” a senior defense intelligence official tells Newsweek, warning that while the CIA fully grasps how much Russia is stuck in Ukraine, it is very much in the dark with regard to what Putin might do about it. With talk of Russian nuclear weapons possibly being deployed to Belarus, and in light of Prigozhin’s public exposure of the terrible costs of fighting, something that Moscow has suppressed, the official says that it is a particularly delicate moment. “What is happening off the battlefield is now most important,” says the official, who was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly. “Both sides pledge to limit their actions, but it falls to the United States to enforce those pledges. This all hinges on the quality of our intelligence.”

“There is a clandestine war, with clandestine rules, underlying all of what is going on in Ukraine,” says a Biden administration senior intelligence official who also spoke with Newsweek. The official, who is directly involved in Ukraine policy planning, requested anonymity to discuss highly classified matters. The official (and numerous other national security officials who spoke to Newsweek) say that Washington and Moscow have decades of experience crafting these clandestine rules, necessitating that the CIA play an outsize role: as primary spy, as negotiator, as supplier of intelligence, as logistician, as wrangler of a network of sensitive NATO relations and perhaps most important of all, as the agency trying to ensure the war does not further spin out of control.

“Don’t underestimate the Biden administration’s priority to keep Americans out of harm’s way and reassure Russia that it doesn’t need to escalate,” the senior intelligence officer says. “Is the CIA on the ground inside Ukraine?” he asks rhetorically. “Yes, but it’s also not nefarious.”

Newsweek has examined in depth the scale and scope of the CIA’s activities in Ukraine, especially in light of growing Congressional questions about the extent of U.S. aid and whether President Biden is keeping his pledge not to have “boots on the ground.” Neither the CIA nor the White House would give specific responses for confirmation, but they asked that Newsweek not reveal the specific locations of CIA operations inside Ukraine or Poland, that it not name other countries involved in the clandestine CIA efforts and that it not name the air service that is supporting the clandestine U.S. logistics effort. After repeated requests for an on-the-record comment, the CIA declined. Neither the Ukrainian nor Russian governments responded to requests for comment.

Over the course of its three-month investigation, Newsweek spoke to over a dozen intelligence experts and officials. Newsweek also sought out contrary views. All of the credible experts and officials Newsweek spoke to agreed that the CIA has been successful in discreetly playing its part in dealing with Kyiv and Moscow, in moving mountains of information and materiel and in dealing with a diverse set of other countries, some of whom are quietly helping while also trying to stay out of Russia’s crosshairs. And they didn’t dispute that on the CIA’s main task—knowing what’s going on in the minds of the leaders of Russia and Ukraine—the Agency has had to struggle.

Intelligence experts say this war is unique in that the United States is aligned with Ukraine, yet the two countries are not allies. And though the United States is helping Ukraine against Russia, it is not formally at war with that country. Thus, much of what Washington does to aid Ukraine is kept secret–and much of what is normally in the realm of the U.S. military is being carried out by the Agency. Everything that is done, including work inside Ukraine itself, must comply with limits established by Biden.

“It’s a tricky balancing act—the CIA being very active in the war while not contradicting the Biden administration’s central pledge, which is that there are no American boots on the ground,” says a second senior intelligence official who was granted anonymity to speak with Newsweek.

For the CIA, its major role in the war in Ukraine has provided a boost in morale after the sour relationship between former President Donald Trump and his spy chiefs. The second official says that while some in the Agency want to speak more openly about its renewed significance, that is not likely to happen. “The corporate CIA worries that too much bravado about its role could provoke Putin,” the intelligence official says.

That is partly why the CIA is also keen to distance itself from anything that suggests a direct attack on Russia and any role in actual combat—something Kyiv has repeatedly done, from the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline and the Kerch Strait bridge to drone and special operations attacks across the border. These attacks seem contrary to pledges by Zelensky that Ukraine would not take actions that might expand the scope of the war.

“The view advanced by many that the CIA is central to the fighting—say, for instance, in killing Russian generals on the battlefield or in important strikes outside Ukraine, such as the sinking of the Moskva flagship–doesn’t play well in Kyiv,” says one retired senior military intelligence official granted anonymity to speak with Newsweek. “If we want Kyiv to listen to us, we need to remind ourselves that the Ukrainians are winning the war, not us.”

Washington has quietly expressed its displeasure to the Zelensky government with regard to the Nord Stream attack last September, but that act of sabotage was followed by other strikes, including the recent drone attack on the Kremlin itself. Those have raised questions over one of the CIA’s main intelligence responsibilities—knowing enough of what the Ukrainians are planning to both influence them and to adhere to their secret agreement with Moscow.

Trouble Shooting

The CIA was central to the war even before it started. At the beginning of his administration, Biden tapped director William Burns as his global trouble shooter—a clandestine operator able to communicate with foreign leaders outside normal channels, someone who could occupy important geopolitical space between overt and covert, and an official who could organize work in the arena that exists between what is strictly military and what is strictly civilian.

As former Ambassador to Russia, Burns has been particularly influential with regard to Ukraine. The CIA had been monitoring Russia’s buildup and in November 2021, three months before the invasion, Biden dispatched Burns to Moscow to warn the Kremlin of the consequences of any attack. Though the Russian president snubbed Biden’s emissary by staying at his retreat in Sochi on the Black Sea, 800 miles away, he did agree to speak with Burns via a Kremlin secure phone.

“In some ironic ways though, the meeting was highly successful,” says the second senior intelligence official, who was briefed on it. Even though Russia invaded, the two countries were able to accept tried and true rules of the road. The United States would not fight directly nor seek regime change, the Biden administration pledged. Russia would limit its assault to Ukraine and act in accordance with unstated but well-understood guidelines for secret operations.

“There are clandestine rules of the road,” says the senior defense intelligence official, “even if they are not codified on paper, particularly when one isn’t engaged in a war of annihilation.” This includes staying within day-to-day boundaries of spying, not crossing certain borders and not attacking each other’s leadership or diplomats. “Generally the Russians have respected these global red lines, even if those lines are invisible,” the official says.

Once Russian forces poured into Ukraine, the United States had to quickly shift gears. The CIA, like the rest of the U.S. intelligence community, had misread Russia’s military capacity and Ukraine’s resilience as Russia failed to take Kyiv and withdrew from the north.

By last July, both sides settled in for a long war. As the war shifted, Washington’s focus changed from very public and symbolic troop deployments to Europe to “deter” further Russian moves, to providing weapons to sustain Ukraine’s ability to fight. In the face of Zelensky’s masterful public lobbying, the United States slowly and reluctantly agreed to supply better and longer-range weapons, weapons that in theory could threaten Russian territory and thus flirt with the feared escalation.

“Zelensky has certainly outdone everyone else in getting what he wants, but Kyiv has had to agree to obey certain invisible lines as well,” says the senior defense intelligence official. In secret diplomacy largely led by the CIA, Kyiv pledged not to use the weapons to attack Russia itself. Zelensky has said openly that Ukraine will not attack Russia.

Behind the scenes, dozens of countries also had to be persuaded to accept the Biden administration’s limits. Some of these countries, including Britain and Poland, are willing to take more risk than the White House is comfortable with. Others—including some of Ukraine’s neighbors—do not entirely share American and Ukrainian zeal for the conflict, do not enjoy unanimous public support in their anti-Russian efforts and do not want to antagonize Putin.

It fell to the CIA to manage this underworld, working through its foreign intelligence counterparts and secret police rather than public politicians and diplomats. The Agency established its own operating bases and staging areas. The CIA sought help from Ukraine’s neighbors in better understanding Putin as well as Zelensky and his administration. Agency personnel went into and out of Ukraine on secret missions, to assist with the operations of new weapons and systems, some of which were not publicly divulged. But the CIA operations were always conducted with an eye to avoid direct confrontation with Russian troops.

“The CIA has been operating inside Ukraine, under strict rules, and with a cap on how many personnel can be in country at any one time,” says another senior military intelligence official. “Black special operators are restricted from conducting clandestine missions, and when they do, it is within a very narrow scope.” (Black special operations refers to those that are conducted clandestinely.)

Simply, CIA personnel can routinely go—and can do—what U.S. military personnel can’t. That includes inside Ukraine. The military, on the other hand, is restricted from entering Ukraine, except under strict guidelines that have to be approved by the White House. This limits the Pentagon to a small number of Embassy personnel in Kyiv. Newsweek was unable to establish the exact number of CIA personnel in Ukraine, but sources suggest it is less than 100 at any one time.

After all the members of the U.S. military were publicly withdrawn from Ukraine in February 2022 including special operations forces that had been behind the scenes, the White House established the roles that different agencies could play in the U.S. response. President Biden signed national security directives and a “presidential finding” authorizing certain covert operations against Russia. “Lanes of the road” were established between the Pentagon and the CIA, just as they had been established in Afghanistan immediately after 9/11. Burns and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin work closely together; the relations of the two agencies, according to the CIA, have never been better.

Now, more than a year after the invasion, the United States sustains two massive networks, one public and the other clandestine. Ships deliver goods to ports in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland, and those supplies are moved by truck, train and air to Ukraine. Clandestinely though, a fleet of commercial aircraft (the “grey fleet”) crisscrosses Central and Eastern Europe, moving arms and supporting CIA operations. The CIA asked Newsweek not to identify specific bases where this network is operating, nor to name the contractor operating the planes. The senior administration official said much of the network had been successfully kept under wraps, and that it was wrong to assume that Russian intelligence knows the details of the CIA’s efforts. Washington believes that If the supply route were known, Russia would attack the hubs and routes, the official said.

None of this can be sustained without a major counter-intelligence effort to thwart Russia’s own spying, the bread-and-butter work of the Agency. Russian intelligence is very active in Ukraine, intelligence experts say, and almost anything the U.S. shares with Ukraine is assumed to also make it to Russian intelligence. Other Eastern European countries are equally riddled with Russian spies and sympathizers, particularly the frontline countries.

“A good part of our time is taken up hunting down Russian penetrations of foreign governments and intelligence services,” says a military counterintelligence official working on the Ukraine war. “We have been successful in identifying Russian spies inside the Ukrainian government and military, and at various other points in the supply chain. But Russian penetration of Eastern European countries, even those who are members of NATO, is deep, and Russian influence operations are of direct concern.”

As billions of dollars worth of arms started flowing through Eastern Europe, another issue that the CIA is working on is the task of fighting corruption, which turned out to be a major problem. This involves not only accounting for where weapons are going but also quashing the pilfering and kickbacks involved in the movement of so much materiel to Ukraine.

The Poland Connection

Less than a month after Russian tanks crossed the border on their way to Kyiv, CIA Director Burns landed in Warsaw, visiting with the directors of Poland’s intelligence agencies and putting together the final agreements that would allow the CIA to use Ukraine’s neighbor as its clandestine hub.

Since the end of the Cold War, Poland and the United States, through the CIA, have established particularly warm relations. Poland hosted a CIA torture “black site” in the village of Stare Kiejkuty during 2002-2003. And after the initial Russian invasion of Donbas and Crimea in 2014, CIA activity expanded to make Poland its third-largest station in Europe.

Poland officially became the center of NATO’s response, first in handling hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the battle, and then as the logistical hub for arms flowing back into Ukraine. The country also became the center of the overt military response. A forward headquarters for the Army V Corps (5th Corps) has been established in Poland. Additional supplies and ammunition for U.S. use are stored in Poland. A permanent Army garrison has been activated, the first ever to be located on NATO’s eastern flank, and today there are now about 10,000 American troops in Poland.

But Poland’s real value is its role in the CIA’s secret war. Burns returned to Warsaw last April, meeting again with Minister of the Interior and “special services” coordinator Mariusz Kaminski, his Polish counterpart, to discuss the scope of cooperation between the two countries, especially in collecting intelligence. From Poland, CIA case officers are able to connect with their many agents, including Ukrainian and Russian spies. CIA ground branch personnel of the Special Activities Center handle security and interact with their Ukrainian partners and the special operations forces of 20 nations, almost all of whom also operate from Polish bases. CIA cyber operators work closely with their Polish partners.

The closeness of U.S.-Polish relations particularly paid off over 24 hours last November. Burns was at Turkish intelligence headquarters in Ankara meeting with Sergei Naryshkin, his Russian counterpart. There he stressed “strategic stability,” according to a senior U.S. government official, and he delivered a new backchannel warning that the United States would not tolerate nuclear threats or escalation. From Turkey he flew on to Ukraine to brief Zelensky on the talks.

While he was in transit, a missile landed in the Polish town of Przewodow, less than 20 miles from the Ukraine border, setting off a diplomatic and press frenzy. A Russian attack on a NATO country would trigger Article 5 of the NATO charter, the principle that an attack on one was an attack on all. But U.S. intelligence, through monitoring thermal signatures that track every missile launch, immediately knew the missile originated from inside Ukraine and not from Russia. (It turned out to be a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile that had gone awry.) Burns got the intelligence from Washington and immediately transmitted it to Polish president Andrzej Duda.

One crisis was averted. But a new one was brewing. Strikes inside Russia were continuing and even increasing, contrary to the fundamental U.S. condition for supporting Ukraine. There was a mysterious spate of assassinations and acts of sabotage inside Russia, some occurring in and around Moscow. Some of the attacks, the CIA concluded, were domestic in origin, undertaken by a nascent Russian opposition. But others were the work of Ukraine—even if analysts were unsure of the extent of Zelensky’s direction or involvement.

‘Karma Is a Cruel Thing’

Early in the war, Kyiv made its own “non-agreement” with Washington to accept the Biden administration’s limitations on attacking Russia, even though that put it at a military disadvantage as Russian forces launched air and missile attacks from their own territory. In exchange, the U.S. promised arms and intelligence that came in ever greater quantities and firepower as Zelensky pushed harder.

The “non-agreement held up for quite some time. There were occasional cross-border artillery attacks and some errant weapons that landed in Russia; in each case Ukraine denied any involvement.

Then came the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines on September 26. Although not in Russia, they were majority-owned by Russian state gas firm Gazprom. Again, Ukraine denied involvement despite the suspicions of the CIA. We have “nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap and have no information about…sabotage groups,” Zelensky’s top aide said, calling any speculation to the contrary “amusing conspiracy theories.”

Next came the truck bomb attack on the Kerch Strait bridge on October 8. Ukraine had threatened to attack the 12-mile bridge that links Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow had annexed in 2014 in a move condemned as illegal by much of the world. Though it wasn’t clear who carried out the attack, Putin blamed Ukrainian “special services.” Meeting with his Security Council, Putin said, “If attempts continue to carry out terrorist acts on our territory, Russia’s responses will be harsh and in their scale will correspond to the level of threats created for the Russian Federation.” And indeed Russia did respond with multiple attacks on targets in Ukrainian cities.

“These attacks only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” the White House said of the Russian retaliatory strike. Behind the scenes, though, the CIA was scrambling to determine the origins.

“The CIA learned with the attack on the Crimea bridge that Zelensky either didn’t have complete control over his own military or didn’t want to know of certain actions,” says the military intelligence official.

The Kerch bridge attack was followed by an even longer-range strike on the Engels Russian bomber base, almost 700 miles from Kyiv. The CIA did not know about any of these attacks beforehand, according to a senior U.S. official, but rumors started to circulate that the Agency was, through some mysterious third party, directing others to strike Russia. The Agency delivered a strong and unusual on-the-record denial. “The allegation that CIA is somehow supporting saboteur networks in Russia is categorically false,” CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp said.

In January this year, Burns was back in Kyiv to meet with Zelensky and his Ukrainian counterparts, discussing the clandestine war and the need to preserve strategic stability. “Kyiv was beginning to taste a potential victory and was therefore more willing to take risks,” says the second senior intelligence official. “But Russian sabotage groups also had emerged by the end of the year.” The January talks had little impact. As for the sabotage strikes themselves, the senior U.S. government official tells Newsweek that the CIA has had no prior knowledge of any Ukrainian operations.

All of this culminated in the May 3 drone attack inside the Kremlin walls in Moscow. Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev blamed the United States and Britain, saying that “the terrorist attacks committed in Russia are…designed to destabilize the socio-political situation, and to undermine the constitutional foundations and sovereignty of Russia.” Ukrainian officials implicitly admitted culpability. “Karma is a cruel thing,” Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak responded, adding fuel to the fire.

A senior Polish government official told Newsweek that it might be impossible to convince Kyiv to abide by the non-agreement it made to keep the war limited. “In my humble opinion, the CIA fails to understand the nature of the Ukrainian state and the reckless factions that exist there,” says the Polish official, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.

In response, the senior U.S. defense intelligence official stressed the delicate balance the Agency must maintain in its many roles, saying: “I hesitate to say that the CIA has failed.” But the official said sabotage attacks and cross border fighting created a whole new complication and continuing Ukrainian sabotage “could have disastrous consequences.”