The US knew Wagner's plans but kept them secret from its allies.

“The United States and its allies had nothing to do with the uprising by the Wagner mercenary group against Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and his military command,” President Biden said on June 26, his first public comments on the short-lived uprising in Russia.

“This is part of an internal struggle in Russia,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House.

Mr Biden said he convened a conference call with several key US allies as the coup by Wagner tycoon Yevgeny Prigozhin unfolded, and the allies agreed not to give Mr Putin any reason to blame the incident on the West or NATO.

Although Mr. Biden asserted that the United States had nothing to do with the incident, US intelligence officials have gathered an extremely detailed and precise picture of Wagner's plans, including where and how Wagner planned, CNN reported.

However, the intelligence is kept closely guarded and only shared with a select few allies, including senior British officials, and not at the NATO level, CNN said.

World - CNN: The US knows Wagner's plan but keeps it secret from its allies — US President Biden said that the US and its allies had nothing to do with the Wagner group's uprising in Russia. Photo: The Guardian

Ukrainian officials were also not briefed in advance about the intelligence, officials said, largely out of concern that conversations between U.S. and Ukrainian officials could be intercepted.

In the United States, this information is only given to the highest-level government officials, as well as those with access to the most sensitive intelligence matters.

According to CNN, US intelligence simply did not know exactly when Mr. Prigozhin would act, but it appears he decided to move forward with his plan after the Russian Defense Ministry's June 10 announcement that all private military companies, including Wagner, would be forced to sign contracts with the Russian military starting in July, and would essentially be taken over by the ministry.

What surprised US intelligence officials, however, was that Wagner faced little resistance.

“The fact that a group of mercenaries, I don’t think there were 25,000 soldiers as Prigozhin claimed, could march into Rostov, a city of millions of people, and take it over with hardly a shot being fired is unprecedented,” said Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

World - CNN: The US knows Wagner's plan but keeps it secret from its allies (Image 2). — Mercenary tycoon Evgeny Prigozhin has ordered his forces to withdraw to their bases after talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who acts as an intermediary for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: France24

After the failed uprising, Biden spent days talking with allies, including the leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During those conversations, he shared the information the United States had, CNN said.

U.S. and Western officials believe Mr. Putin was simply caught off guard by Prigozhin’s actions and did not have time to deploy troops against the Wagner mercenaries before they took control of the military headquarters in Rostov. Mr. Putin may also have been reluctant to divert significant resources away from Ukraine, officials said.

However, officials believe that if Prigozhin tried to seize Moscow or the Kremlin, he would surely lose. That may be why Prigozhin agreed to the Belarus-brokered deal and decided to withdraw his troops when they were only about 200 kilometers from Moscow, CNN noted .

Nguyen Tuyet (According to CNN, NY Times)

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