U.S. Asked Ukraine Not to Conduct Covert Attacks in Russia During Rebellion, Officials Say
The Biden administration asked Ukrainian officials not to conduct covert attacks inside Russia as the Wagner group rebellion was underway and advised them not to do anything that would influence the outcome of events or take advantage of the chaos, according to American officials.
At the time of the American outreach to Ukraine, U.S. officials did not know precisely what Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, had planned, according to U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence, but they knew that Mr. Prigozhin wanted to take military action to force Sergei K. Shoigu, the minister of defense, and Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, from power.
They did not know how he intended to do that, or what he intended to do with them, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. The outreach came soon after Mr. Prigozhin began his rebellion, officials said.
In urging Kyiv to exercise caution, U.S. officials did not want to give President Vladimir V. Putin an excuse to claim that Mr. Prigozhin’s rebellion was orchestrated by the United States or by Ukraine. They also said they believed that any high-profile operation by Ukrainian forces inside Russia was unlikely to have any major effect on Mr. Prigozhin’s goals, but would allow Mr. Putin to level accusations against the West, according to American assessments.
Source: The New York Times
