Topline
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the short-lived rebellion by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary group “shows real cracks” within Russia and poses a threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin during in an interview Sunday with CBS’s Face The Nation, a day after the two Russian leaders agreed to halt the uprising.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration was closely monitoring the internal … [+] rebellion in Russia over the weekend.
Key Facts
The potential threat to Putin might not be over, Blinken said Sunday, describing the events of the past few days as “an unfolding story” that “we haven’t seen the last act” of.
Despite how quickly the conflict began and ended, Blinken said the attempted uprising was “a direct challenge to Putin’s authority,” as he had to “defend Moscow, Russia’s capital, against mercenaries of Putin’s own making.”
When Blinken was asked if the U.S. was prepared for the potential fall of the Putin government, he said the U.S. prepares for every contingency but said the conflict was “an internal matter for the Russians to figure out.”
The secretary of state told ABC’s This Week the rebellion—which poses one of the gravest threats to Putin since he first took power over 20 years ago—could distract from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but instability in Russia is a cause for concern.
Crucial Quote
“Prigozhin himself, in this entire incident, has raised profound questions about the very premises for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in the first place,” Blinken said during the Face The Nation interview, referring to a video in which Prigozhin said Russian leaders had lied to the public about the rationale for last year’s invasion.
What We Don’t Know
Blinken said it was unclear where the Prigozhin-led Wagner forces go from here and whether they will return to fight as Wagner or integrate into regular Russian forces. The U.S. also still doesn’t know the final terms of the agreement between Prigozhin and Putin, though Blinken speculated more information would trickle out in the days and weeks ahead about the specifics of the deal.
Surprising Fact
Since mid-June, intelligence gathered by U.S. spy agencies showed Prigozhin was planning a rebellion, the Washington Post reported. U.S. spy agencies warned the White House and other government agencies of the plans so officials would not be caught off guard. Officials did not know the specifics of the action until right before the takeover began, but “there were enough signals to be able to tell leadership … that something was up,” an unnamed U.S. official told the Post.
Key Background
On Friday, Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner Group—a private army of more than 25,000 which has been heavily involved in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—began an armed rebellion after he accused the Russian military of attacking one of the Wagner group’s camps. The Wagner Group—which had been fighting alongside Russian troops in the war against Ukraine—subsequently claimed control over Russian military facilities in Voronezh and Rostov, Russia’s logistical hub for its invasion of Ukraine given the proximity to the border. Troops from the group then marched toward Moscow, but before they made it to the capital, Prigozhin and Putin struck a deal to stop the rebellion. The terms of the deal said Prigozhin would move to Belarus and no one involved in the armed rebellion would face charges, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Wagner troops began pulling out of Rostov and Voronezh, in southern Russia on Sunday.
Further Reading
Who Is Yevgeny Prigozhin: ‘Putin’s Chef’ Now Chief Rival Interfered With 2016 U.S. Election (Forbes)
