CIA Director William Burns has warned that the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is probably in the crosshairs of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny on June 24 in which Wagner forces took a key Russian city and surged towards Moscow, before the mercenary army abruptly halted.
Sometimes referred to as Putin’s Chef because he once ran a catering business, Mr Prigozhin said he was not trying to start a coup but merely seeking to draw attention to the needs of his troops fighting in Ukraine.
In exchange for ending the uprising, fighters who took part were granted amnesty, while Mr Prigozhin was allowed to flee to Belarus, a move that shocked the CIA's chief.
“What was remarkable to me was that Putin felt compelled to do a deal with his former caterer,” Mr Burns told the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.
The uprising exposed serious weaknesses in Mr Putin’s carefully crafted image, he said.
“The question was, does the Emperor have no clothes – or at least why is it taking so long for him to get dressed?” Mr Burns said of the Russian leader's slow response to the uprising.
While the paramilitary leader has met Mr Putin in the weeks since the events, Mr Burns warned that the Russian President has a long memory.
“Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback,” he said. “I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this.
“If I were Prigozhin, I wouldn't fire my food taster.”
The mercenary leader has not exactly been keeping a low profile. The CIA chief said that he had moved around quite a bit, including spending time in Minsk and Russia.
On Wednesday, Mr Prigozhin released a video in which he welcomed his fighters to Belarus.
“Welcome lads … welcome to Belarusian soil,” he said in a night-time video. “We fought honourably. You have done a great deal for Russia.
"What is going on at the front is a disgrace that we do not need to get involved in.”
Wagner fighters had been Russia’s most effective forces in the war in Ukraine before the events of June 24.
