Ukraine was asked to lay low during Russian rebellion, U.S. 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 U.S. 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 Prigozhin wanted to take military action to force Sergei Shoigu, the minister of defense, and Gen. Valery 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 Prigozhin began his rebellion, officials said.

In urging Ukraine to exercise caution, U.S. officials did not want to give President Vladimir Putin an excuse to claim that 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 Prigozhin’s goals, but would allow Putin to level accusations against the West, according to American assessments.

U.S. officials specifically told Ukrainian officials that it was not the time to undertake cross-border attacks or covert sabotage missions, or to engage in any gamesmanship that Kyiv might think could give them an advantage in the war. U.S. officials said that as far as they knew, Ukrainian intelligence units acquiesced.

The caution appears to have worked, in part, as Russian officials began to signal in recent days that they did not believe the West was behind the rebellion and urged their embassies not to comment on it publicly.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia said on Wednesday that Moscow had gathered information that he believed showed that the United States told Ukraine not to take advantage of the rebellion.

“Instructions were sent to Kyiv so that the Ukrainians would not use this situation to organize sabotage on Russian territory and other provocations in the near future,” Lavrov told Russian television. “I cannot guarantee it 100%, but this is reliable information that appears to be true.”

Lavrov’s remarks suggest that the Kremlin, for once, does not see the West as the primary culprit in the rebellion — unlike the attacks inside Russia believed to have been carried out by Ukraine, which the Kremlin often blames on the West. The Kremlin, for now, seems intent on assigning blame primarily on Prigozhin.