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1/ A leaked document shows that the Russian Ministry of Defence was notified prior to the mutiny that Wagner would be moving equipment across Russia. However, this was reportedly cover for a plan to capture and remove Defence Minister Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Gerasimov.
2/ According to the document, which has been published by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, Wagner Group representative Andrey Troshev informed the MOD leadership that Wagner would be moving its equipment to storage and transfer sites in Russia between 21 June – 5 July.
3/ A VChK-OGPU source says that Russian Air Force Chief Sergey Surovikin, who is reportedly himself an honorary Wagner member, acted as a guarantor of Wagner's good conduct in the operation. However, Surovokin is said to have been aware of the planned mutiny.
4/ The source says that Shoigu learned that the movement of forces was cover for an effort to capture and remove himself and Gerasimov. They are said to have total control over the information that Putin is receiving about the war, and to be misleading him about its true state.
5/ According to VChK-OGPU, "lately Surovikin has been kept away from Putin in every possible way, short-circuiting all reports either through Gerasimov or through fake unit commanders [reporting] from the front.
6/ "Realising that earlier attempts to remove Shoigu and Gerasimov through public discrediting by Prigozhin were unsuccessful, it was decided to use the possibility of the transfer of Wagner forces and resources ...
7/ ...to physically capture Shoigu and Gerasimov and subsequently report to Putin on the true state of affairs.
8/ "Upon learning about the conspirators' intentions, Shoigu managed to report to Putin that a coup d'etat was being prepared to overthrow Putin himself, and to prevent this a preventive strike on the conspirators was required.
9/ "Subsequently, it was also decided to isolate the conspirators among the generals without revealing their involvement in the coup in order to avoid uncontrolled developments among the military at the front, with whom Surovikin has more authority than Gerasimov and Shoigu.
10/ "For the time being, consideration is being given to showing the public that Surovikin has returned to duty in order to defuse tensions within the military."
11/ The reference to reports from "fake commanders" is interesting, as it ties into something I've covered previously – the Russian military's culture of institutional lying, in which commanders at all levels routinely lie about and fake their activities.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1570169288849326082
12/ This is likely to have had extremely negative consequences for Russian forces, which even pro-Russian commentators say has caused serious harm. There's a high likelihood that Putin is not making decisions based on reliable information.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1629201232815394816
13/ Possibly relatedly, the Redacted 6 Telegram channel recently reported that hundreds of information operations staff from the Russian MOD have arrived in the Luhansk region to shoot fake videos of Russian battlefield successes. According to the channel:
14/ "They are pulling fighters from various units to record them around Luhansk in videos indicating that they were filmed on the front line. Such mass work to create the illusion of well-being raises fears that things are far from smooth at the front, and reports are required."
15/ If this is accurate, it's almost certainly a case of fake "photo reports" [фотоотчетами] being generated for high-level commanders. An operation on the scale described would have to have been authorised by someone at a very senior level.
16/ This raises the question of who the photo reports are intended for – who is the ultimate customer? An obvious possibility is that it's part of an effort to keep Putin happy about the progress of the war by providing him with a stream of fake reports. /end
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