Russian State-TV Boss Says She Saw Prigozhin's Mutiny Coming: 'Obvious'

Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russian state-run broadcaster RT, has said she saw Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion coming.

Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner mercenary group, abruptly escalated months of scathing criticism of Russia's conduct of the war in Ukraine on June 24, calling for an armed uprising to oust Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

It erupted into a mutiny that saw Prigozhin's mercenaries leave Ukraine to seize a military headquarters in a southern Russian city and roll, seemingly unopposed, for hundreds of miles toward Moscow, before turning around after fewer than 24 hours.

Prigozhin and his fighters escaped prosecution and were offered exile in Belarus as part of a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin has assigned Russia's security services to assassinate Prigozhin, according to Ukraine's head of defense intelligence.

Now, Simonyan has said that she had guessed that Prighozin was "plotting a coup" earlier this year.

Julia Davis, the founder of the Russian Media Monitor watchdog group, shared a clip of a broadcast where Simonyan made the remarks on Twitter on Saturday.

"I'm thinking back to our arguments, with you, Tigran and our friends, in December 2021, when I said that by spring of 2022 there'd be a big war in Ukraine," Simonyan tells host Roman Babayan in the clip, according to the translation provided by Russian Media Monitor.

"You said, 'what are you talking about?' There you go, just like with Prighozhin...Didn't I say in the spring he was plotting a coup?"

Simonyan said she had the realization after speaking with Prigozhin earlier this year.

"After speaking to him for 40 minutes in the spring...we spoke on the phone and it was all quite obvious," she said.

Her comments come after fellow Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said he had warned Prighozhin not to commit "treason" prior to the uprising.

"I tried to warn him, this is treason against the Motherland. I tried to warn him against thinking in this vein," he said.

Solovyov also said the incident had "caused colossal damage to our country's reputation" and "unwittingly revealed an insane amount of information to the enemy."

Simonyan echoed that sentiment in her recent television appearance.

"It's hard for me to imagine that regardless of their reasons, resentments, conflicts and multiple grievances, that people who organized it did not understand that first of all, this is a gift for our common enemies," she said.

"I know Prighozhin, I've known him for many years. It's still hard for me to believe it, you know? I think it's even more difficult for our president."