Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that the brief revolt by the private mercenary group, the Wagner Group, earlier this weekend has shown “cracks” in Russia that were not previously there.
Blinken said that the U.S. does not have the full details on the brief rebellion against the Russian military but said he suspects it is “a moving picture,” while speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
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“We don’t have full information obviously and it is too soon to tell exactly where this is going to go. And I suspect that this is a moving picture and we haven’t seen the last act yet. But we could say this. First of all, what we’ve seen is extraordinary. And I think you’ve seen cracks emerge that weren’t there before,” Blinken said
The Secretary of State also said that he is unaware of any military officials in Russia being removed from power as part of negotiations which caused the Wagner Group to end its brief rebellion on Saturday.
Blinken would not say if the brief rebellion is the “beginning of the end” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, when asked, but did call Russia’s actions in the war in Ukraine a “strategic failure” on multiple fronts.
“I don’t want to speculate about that. This is, first of all, an internal matter for Russia. What we’ve seen is this, though, we’ve seen this aggression against Ukraine become a strategic failure across the board,” said Blinken. “Russia is weaker economically, militarily, it’s standing around the world has plummeted.”
Blinken said the war in Ukraine has united and strengthened NATO “with new members and a stronger alliance and uniting Ukraine as well,” while Russia has been alienated.
“This is just an added chapter to a very, very bad book that Putin has written for Russia,” Blinken said.
He added, “But what is so striking is that it is internal. The fact that you have, from within, someone directly questioning Putin’s authority and directly questioning the premise upon which he launched his aggression against Ukraine, that in and of itself is something very powerful, it adds cracks, where those go and when they get there, too soon to say. But it clearly raises new questions that Putin had as to deal with.”
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The brief rebellion saw the Wagner Group head toward Moscow, after expressing discontent with Russian military leadership before talks between Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and Putin lead the private mercenary group to turn around.
The internal episode for Russia comes nearly 16 months after the country launched an invasion and subsequent war in neighboring Ukraine.
