A top Russian general has been arrested for allegedly siding with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss or potential former boss of the Wagner paramilitary group, during the organization’s armed rebellion against the Russian government late last week.
The Moscow Times reported that multiple sources confirmed to the publication that General Sergei Surovikin was arrested because he “chose the side [of Prigozhin during the rebellion] and they grabbed him by the balls.”
The source, when asked where Surovikin was, said: “We don’t even comment on this information through internal channels.”
Another source appeared to say that Surovikin sided with Prigozhin “for power.”
The publication said that a notable military blogger inside the country first reported that Surovikin had been arrested the day after the rebellion.
Another Kremlin source said that Surovikin raised eyebrows when, during the rebellion, “he didn’t behave very submissively when he was given the task of reading the text on camera and sorting it out, he was too daring to the leadership.”
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Surovikin had advance knowledge of Prigozhin’s plans to launch a rebellion against Russia’s military establishment, according to U.S. officials. The report said that there were indicators that other Russian generals may have supported Prigozhin’s efforts.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) said on Sunday that Yevgeny Prigozhin had multiple accomplices inside Russia to pull off his feat of moving his forces from Ukraine to within two hours of Moscow in less than a day.
“This is something that would have had to been planned for a significant amount of time to be executed in the manner in which it was,” Turner said.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Prigozhin’s plan was to capture Russia’s military leaders and that he had to launch the mutiny faster than he wanted to because Russia’s feared Federal Security Service (FSB), formerly the KGB, became aware of the plot.
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