U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated the Wagner mercenary group’s revolt in opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “direct challenge” to his authority and offers a battlefield benefit to Ukraine in its warfare to drive out Russian forces.
“This raises profound questions. It shows real cracks,” Blinken stated Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “We can’t speculate or know exactly where that’s going to go. We do know that Putin has a lot more to answer for in the weeks and months ahead.”
Putin confronted the most important risk to his practically quarter-century grip on energy after Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led his troops towards Moscow. The scenario has stabilized after the Kremlin stated Putin assured that Prigozhin might journey to Belarus and would drop legal mutiny costs in opposition to him and the Wagner fighters concerned within the riot.
Blinken, who gave a constant message throughout 4 tv interviews Sunday morning, stated the U.S. is concentrated on supporting Ukraine and its counteroffensive in opposition to Russian forces, which he stated on CNN might “play out over weeks, maybe even over months.”
“To the extent that Russia is now distracted, that Putin has to worry about what’s going on inside of Russia, as much as he has to worry about what he’s trying to do — not successfully — in Ukraine, I think that creates an additional advantage for the Ukrainians,” he stated on CNN’s State of the Union.
Blinken stated that the U.S. had contact with Russian officers concerning the security of U.S. personnel and residents within the area, and that U.S. intelligence hasn’t seen any change in Russia’s nuclear posture amid the disaster.
“I instructed my own team, at the president’s behest, to engage with the Russians first and foremost to make sure that they understood their responsibilities in terms of protecting our own personnel, ensuring their safety and well being, as well as any American citizens in Russia,” he stated.
U.S. intelligence companies briefed senior navy and administration officers on Wednesday that Prigozhin was making ready to take motion in opposition to senior Russian protection officers, the New York Times reported earlier, citing officers it didn’t determine.
Prigozhin’s march towards Moscow “was a direct challenge to Putin’s authority,” Blinken stated on CBS. He declined to remark when requested concerning the intelligence reviews.
“It’s been no secret to many people over many months that these tensions were rising, they were brewing,” he stated on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“Prigozhin was already saying some rather extraordinary things about Russia’s conduct of the war in Ukraine and going directly at Russia’s military leadership,” Blinken stated. “So, this was a rising storm.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”