NEW YORK, July 21. /TASS/. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States had the prior knowledge of Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to stage an armed mutiny, CIA Director William Burns has told the Aspen Security Forum.

"President Biden put it succinctly when he said that we knew things ahead of time, and I'm not going to go into more detail than that," the CIA chief said, when asked whether US intelligence had information about the mutiny plot.

In his words, "it didn't come as any real surprise when he [Prigozhin] decided to take action."

In his earlier interview to MSNBC, Biden was unclear on whether he had prior knowledge of Wagner PMC’s founder plans of mutiny. Prior to that, CNN reported that the US intelligence had some information about the plot.

On the evening of June 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the PMC Wagner, said on his Telegram channel that his units had been attacked, and accused the military leadership of Russia. The Defense Ministry dismissed these allegations as false. PMC Wagner units who agreed to support Prigozhin headed for Rostov-on-Don and towards Moscow. The Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a case over the call for armed mutiny. Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised address described the PMC Wagner’s actions as treason.

Later, by agreement with Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held talks with Prigozhin. The PMC Wagner’s convoys turned back and returned to the field camps. The Kremlin later clarified that the criminal case against Prigozhin would be dropped and he would be allowed to move to Belarus. The Kremlin later said that the authorities would not prosecute PMC personnel for taking part in the mutiny in light of their accomplishments on the frontline. The criminal proceedings over the attempted armed mutiny were terminated, the FSB said.