Home » Rebellion in Russia exposes ‘cracks’ in Putin’s regime, says minister Blinken

Rebellion in Russia exposes ‘cracks’ in Putin’s regime, says minister Blinken

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Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a video speech on June 24, 2023 as Wagner fighters stage an uprising.

Gavriil Grigorov | AFP | Getty Images

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said much remains unknown about the chaos that has unfolded Russia on Saturdaybut that the internal conflict had revealed “fissures” in the nation that “were not there before”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin faced a violent coup attempt on Saturday by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a longtime Putin ally who led private mercenary fighters called the Wagner Group. But less than 24 hours after Wagner’s mercenaries appeared to have seized the strategic southern city of Rostov and began the march of an armed convoy towards Moscow, Prigozhin suddenly announced that the armed uprising was over.

In exchange for the reversal, the criminal case against Prigozhin was dropped, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian journalists, according to state-controlled outlet TASS. Prigozhin himself “will go to Belarus,” Peskov said, describing what appeared to be a sort of official exile.

Prigozhin played a central role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so his departure may ultimately change the course of the war. And although his uprising was short-lived, it represented the most serious challenge to Putin’s regime in decades.

“This is just another chapter in a very, very bad book that Putin has written for Russia,” Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.

Blinken said that Prigozhin was responsible for the “horrible brutality” in Ukraine and that in many ways Prigozhin was Putin’s direct creation. He said it was too early to say exactly what the rift between the two men would mean for Russia, but that the US remained “intensely focused” on Ukraine.

Prigozhin’s direct questioning of Putin’s authority is “extraordinary”, Blinken added, as Prigozhin managed to raise questions about the motivation behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He said the war was ultimately a “devastating, strategic failure” for Putin.

“We have seen that this aggression against Ukraine has become a strategic failure across the board,” he said. “Russia is weaker economically, militarily, its position in the world has collapsed.”

Blinken expects the U.S. to learn more details about the deal between Putin and Prigozhin in the coming weeks and months, as well as what will happen to Wagner’s group.

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