Top US diplomat says Wagner mutiny shows ‘real cracks’ in Putin’s government; whereabouts of Russian president and Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin remain unknown
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said the Wagner uprising showed “real cracks” in Vladimir Putin’s government and may offer Ukraine a crucial advantage as it conducts a counteroffensive that could influence the outcome of the war. “This is an unfolding story and I think we’re in the midst of a moving picture,” Blinken told the CBS News programme Face the Nation. “We haven’t seen the last act.”
There has been no word from Putin or Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin since the rebellion ended and their whereabouts are unclear. Putin appeared on Russian state TV on Sunday but the comments appeared to have been recorded before the mutiny. In an interview broadcast on state television he made no reference to the rebellion but renewed his commitment to the war in Ukraine, calling the “special military operation” his top priority.
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda warned that Nato would need to strengthen its eastern flank if Prigozhin is exiled to Belarus as agreed with Moscow. Following a state security council meeting on the mercenary group’s attempt to revolt against Russian military leadership, Nausėda said: “If Prigozhin or part of the Wagner group ends up in Belarus with unclear plans and unclear intentions, it will only mean that we need to further strengthen the security of our eastern borders.”
State television also said Putin would attend a meeting of Russia’s Security Council this week, without elaborating. Belarus’ Belta news agency said Putin and President Alexander Lukashenko, who negotiated with Prigozhin to end the mutiny, spoke again on Sunday, after at least two calls on Saturday.
The weekend’s events have “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime”, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, saying he had discussed the turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden. In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.
The Ukrainian president said he had also held “positive conversations” with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Polish president Andrzej Duda. They discussed “hostilities on the frontline” and the “further strengthening of Ukrainian troops”.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said China had declared support for the leadership in Moscow during a previously unannounced trip to Beijing by Russian deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko. “The Chinese side expressed support for the efforts of the leadership of the Russian Federation to stabilise the situation in the country in connection with the events of June 24, and reaffirmed its interest in strengthening the unity and further prosperity of Russia,” a statement said. China’s foreign ministry said supported “Russia in maintaining national stability”, without explicitly referring to Putin personally.
Ukrainian soldiers returning from the frontline on Sunday told the news agency AFP the revolt by Wagner had not noticeably affected fighting around the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. “We are returning now from the Bakhmut direction, we can say that fighting is going on in both the area of Klishchiivka and Bakhmut,” one soldier said. “As it attacked yesterday, Russia continued to attack today.”
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said that the revolt highlighted divisions within the Russian government. Speaking to the Provence newspaper on Sunday, Macron said that Wagner’s march to Moscow “shows the divisions that exist within the Russian camp, and the fragility of both its military and its auxiliary forces.”
Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said he spoke to US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, and described the Russian authorities as “weak”. Reznikov wrote on Twitter: “We talked about recent events in Russia. We agree that the Russian authorities are weak and that withdrawing Russian troops from Ukraine is the best choice for the Kremlin. Russia would be better served to address its own issues.”
Russian officials said that houses and roads had been damaged because of the rebellion by the Wagner mercenaries. Nineteen houses had been damaged in the village of Yelizavetovka as a result of a firefight involving Wagner forces while about 10,000 square metres of roads in Rostov had been damaged by tank tracks.
