After the rebellion of the paramilitary group Wagner against the Russian army, the reactions of international leaders rocketed from all sides. For the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, the coup by Yevgeny Prigojine reveals “real cracks” within the highest echelons of the Russian state.
The aborted coup by the leader of the paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigojine, reveals “real cracks” at the highest level of the Russian state, challenging the authority of President Vladimir Putin, estimated Sunday the head of the American diplomacy, Anthony Blinken. “It directly challenged Putin’s authority. So it raises real questions and reveals real cracks,” the US secretary of state told CBS. The United States, which has held intense consultations with its European allies over the past 24 hours over the crisis in Russia, has so far refrained from commenting directly on these events.
“An additional advantage” for Ukraine
Mr. Blinken himself discussed the situation in Russia on Saturday with his counterparts from the G7 countries, as well as Poland and Turkey. Making the rounds of Sunday television broadcasts, he still deemed it “too early” to speculate on the impact of the crisis on Russia or the war in Ukraine. But “to the extent that Russia’s attention is diverted (..) this creates I think an additional advantage” for Ukraine in the midst of an offensive against Russian forces, he said.
“It’s too early to know how this is going to end. It’s an evolving picture,” he said, “but the fact that you have someone inside questioning the authority of Putin and directly questioning why he launched this aggression of Ukraine, that in itself is something very powerful.” “They had to defend Moscow against mercenaries that they themselves created,” he said again, insisting on the “strategic failure” of the Russian president in Ukraine.