Global Research

Author’s Update: Was Western Intelligence Involved?

While Yevgeny Prigozhin had flown from Rostov to Minsk in his Legacy 600 Embraer  Jet (in a deal allegedly negotiated between Putin and Belarus President Lukashenko), his whereabouts are currently unknown. Contradictory press reports point  to Prigozhin‘s intent to build a new Wagner mercenary base in Belarus for the 8,000 soldiers who accompanied him to Minsk. The evidence is scanty. 

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin confirmed that the finances of Prigozhin’s mercenary company would be the object of an investigation. In all likelihood, the net proceeds of the $2 billion dollars received by Wagner from the Russian government have already been deposited in one or more offshore bank accounts.

The latest report states that “he vanished” eight days after the so-called “mutiny”. This is a nonsensical statement. Prigorzhin’s private jet has standard tracking codes. No doubt both Russian and Western Intelligence know where he is.

On Monday July 3, Prigozhin is reported to have made an online audio presentation from an unknown location. Has Prigozhin travelled in his private jet from Minsk to an unnamed foreign country? 

The Western media have intimated (with the usual innuendos) that Prigozhin had contacted Western intelligence: 

“It is evident that he tipped off US and British intelligence that he was about to pull Wagner fighters back from Ukraine into Russia. It was as if he wanted to know how the allies and Ukraine might react, and how it would change the war.” 

This suggests that the Wagner chief has good contacts in the West — though there is no sign that Western nations helped him. (Evening Standard, June 30, 2023, emphasis added)

Joe Biden: “The US is Not Involved with Wagner Revolt”

CIA Director William J. Burns was in touch by phone with Russia’s SVR intelligence counterpart Sergei Naryshkin  “to convey to Moscow that the U.S. had no role in the uprising”. 

President Biden had previously stated with hesitation (June 26, 2023) that the U.S. had taken this initiative to: 

“make sure we gave Putin no excuse – let me emphasize – we gave Putin no excuse to blame this on the West or to blame this on NATO.”  

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, July 4, 2023

***

There was a hype in propaganda and US political statements against President Putin. 

Putin knew about it before it happened. He was briefed by Russia’s Ministry of Defense and the SVR. 

US intel had advanced knowledge of Prigozhin’s intent.

“U.S. spy agencies had indications days earlier that Mr. Prigozhin was planning something and worked to refine that material into a finished assessment, officials said.” (NYT, June 24, 2023)

It is worth noting that on June 21 (2 days prior to Prigozhin’s “Mutiny”), US Intel. had already briefed senior military and government officials. 

There is no evidence, however, that it was a US intelligence op. 

There is Something very Fishy

The Wagner Group was founded in 2014. Wagner PMC soldiers had been fighting courageously on behalf of Luhansk and Donesk since 2014-2015, coming to the rescue of civilians. 

In his June 23 video, Prigozhin casually denied his commitment to the people of Donbass, emphatically stating that the “war in Ukraine had been unleashed under false pretenses”.

Who wrote his script? 

It is worth noting that the Wagner PMC  was founded in 2014 by a former Ukrainian-born GRU officer Dmitry Utkin together with Prigozhin. Allegedly, Utkin had Nazi leanings. The PMC mercenary group was named by Utkin in honor of German Composer Richard Wagner. 

Prigozhin is an oligarch. His net worth is in excess of 1 billion dollars (according to Forbes). Was he co-opted and bribed to trigger an alleged “coup” against president Putin? 

There Never Was A Plan to Carry Out a Coup d’Etat

Since June 22-23, I have reviewed countless articles from mainstream and independent media sources. Many Global Research authors are renowned military and intelligence experts familiar with the logic and parameters of regime change and coups d’état.

There is an issue which visibly no one has addressed, specifically the numerous pundits and “authoritative sources” who claim that it was an “attempted” or “failed” coup d’Etat”:

The Rostov-Moscow M-4 Highway 

Beneath the complexities of the crisis, there never was a real plan to wage a coup d’Etat, i.e. a so-called “Moscow Maidan”. Why? Use your common sense.

You do not plan and announce a coup d’Etat in Rostov on the Don which is at the tip of the Sea of Azov and then drive North on Russia’s busy M-4 highway with a clumsy convoy of Wagner tanks and armoured vehicles.

From Rostov to Moscow’s Red Square, it’s a tiring trip of more than 1000 kilometers.

The Answer should have been obvious from the start. Have a look at the map. (See below).

Russia’s state of the Art T-tanks can travel at a speed of 50-80 km an hour. In other words, it would take (with possible stop overs) 15 to 20 hours (not to mention traffic before reaching the Red Square).

(Jokingly, it’s like planning a military op. on Miami Beach, driving up from Florida on U.S. Interstate 95 to Washington DC, and waging a coup against the White House). 

Global Research has over the years published numerous articles and reports on the history and strategies of military coups and regime change in different regions of the World. We have never come across anything comparable to Prigozhin’s alleged “coup”. 

I look forward to watching Hollywood’s future movie on Prigozhin’s “failed coup d’Etat” against Putin. It will be a “blockbuster” (possibly funded by the Pentagon)? 

Geography, location, distance are key concepts –combined of course with an understanding of  the political, social and military dimensions of a coup d’Etat. 

Prigozhin is not ignorant. He had no intent on planning a coup d’état against Putin as perceived in chorus by the mainstream media. That was not his game. 

On a personal note, I gained an understanding of US sponsored military coups while teaching in Latin America. I lived the coup d’état in Santiago de Chile on September 11, 1973 which instated the Pinochet dictatorship. It destroyed democracy. It led to the impoverishment of an entire country. Kissinger was behind the military coup. 

Image Right: General Augusto Pinochet welcomes U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

A couple of years later, I was in Argentina at the outset of General Jorge Videla’s military rule (1976) which was supported by the Rockefellers.

It was “The Dirty War”, “La guerra sucia”. A history of  U.S. sponsored killings of civilians under “Operation Condor”.

Image Left: General Jorge Videla, the late David Rockefeller and Wall Street’s appointed Finance Minister Martinez de Hoz. 

A Moscow Coup d’Etat planned in Donbass? 

And then you travel up to Moscow to confront president Putin. This is nonsensical.

It was at best “an act of mutiny” led by Prigozhin. He is a billionaire. He’s interested in money. Was he paid to do it? This is a matter for further investigation. According to Scott Ritter (June 23):

“…a concerted effort between Wagner, the Ukrainian intelligence service, and their Western sponsors … Prigozhin is working on behalf of foreign intelligence Services carrying out their tasks. That task is to collapse the government of Vladimir Putin. I personally believe that he won’t succeed. But that’s what’s happening this morning”

There were Two Possible “Scenarios”

First Scenario: Had the Russian Airforce been instructed by the Kremlin, it could have destroyed the Wagner convoy on the Rostov-Moscow M-4 highway (“a piece of cake”) in a couple of hours. 

But that did not happen. Is that what US-NATO thought might have happened? 

The Second scenario was applied.

The Russian Government advised by the MOD and FSB took the decision not to intervene militarily. An agreement was reached with Prigorzhin. Wagner troops split up, most of them joining Russia’s regular Armed Forces.

There was no “real convoy” en route to Moscow.