Richard Moore, the chief of MI6, said the Russian leader acted “to save his skin,” offering rare insights into the events surrounding the sudden end of Yevgeny V. Prigozhin’s march on Moscow.
Richard Moore, the leader of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, speaking in London in November 2022. On Wednesday in Prague, he offered rare insights into the brief mercenary rebellion against Russia’s military leadership last month.Credit…Matt Dunham/Associated Press
The chief of Britain’s intelligence agency, MI6, said on Wednesday that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had “cut a deal” with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, during Mr. Prigozhin’s failed rebellion last month.
The comments from Richard Moore, the head of MI6, in a rare speech in Prague at an event hosted by Politico, offer insights from a Western intelligence official into the stunning but short-lived revolt by Mr. Prigozhin last month.
The Wagner leader staged a mutiny against Russia’s military last month, which saw his mercenary forces marching toward the capital before abruptly halting. More than two weeks later, the Kremlin disclosed that Mr. Prigozhin and other Wagner leaders had met with Mr. Putin for three hours in the days after the rebellion ended.
“I think he probably feels under some pressure,” Mr. Moore said of Mr. Putin, speaking at the British ambassador’s residence in the Czech capital. “Prigozhin was his creature, utterly created by Putin, and yet he turned on him. He really didn’t fight back against Prigozhin; he cut a deal to save his skin using the good offices of the leader of Belarus.”
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Mr. Moore also reflected on the head-spinning nature of the Wagner forces’ sudden march toward Moscow, the swiftness with which they stopped, and Mr. Prigozhin’s seeming escape — so far — from the grim fate of many Kremlin critics.
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His location has been largely uncertain since the revolt. Mr. Prigozhin is known to have spent several days in Russia afterward, and video posted on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday appears to show him in Belarus. The New York Times verified that the video was taken on Tuesday night at a makeshift Wagner camp about 50 miles southeast of the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
“Prigozhin started off that day as a traitor at breakfast, he had been pardoned by supper, and then a few days later, he was invited for tea,” Mr. Moore told the audience. “So, there are some things that even the chief of MI6 finds a little bit difficult to try and interpret, in terms of who’s in and who’s out.”
Last week, Mr. Putin said that Wagner troops could continue fighting alongside the Russian Army in Ukraine, but without their leader.
“He is clearly under pressure,” Mr. Moore said of Mr. Putin. “You don’t have a group of mercenaries advance up the motorway toward Rostov and get to within 125 kilometers of Moscow unless you have not quite predicted that was going to happen.”
Mr. Moore was not the only British official weighing in on Mr. Putin’s situation on Wednesday. James Cleverly, Britain’s foreign minister, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, said that no matter “how Putin attempts to spin it, an attempted coup is never a good look.”
He also said that the details of fissures among the Russian elites were limited but that there are “indicators that things are not well.”
Russia ultimately withdrew from Afghanistan because internal Russian pressure became insurmountable, Mr. Cleverly said, referring a decade-long conflict that ended in 1989. “And we are seeing some of the evidence that a similar thing is happening,” he added.
Mr. Cleverly said the rebellion underscored the falsity of Mr. Putin’s assertions that Russia would be more committed to a long war in Ukraine than the West would be. “It proved the lie that underpins Putin’s strategic rationale,” he said.
“What Prigozhin said out loud is what we all instinctively knew: This was an entirely unjustified and uncalled-for invasion,” he added. “This was driven by the ego and ambition of Vladimir Putin. There was never any risk or threat to the Russian homeland or the Russian people.”
Megan Specia is an international correspondent for The Times, based in London, covering the United Kingdom and Ireland. Since early 2022, she has also covered the war in Ukraine. She joined The Times in 2016. More about Megan Specia
Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal.
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