Russian state television showed video Monday of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visiting with troops in his first public appearance since the brief rebellion of mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his forces.
The report did not specify when or where Shoigu met with the troops and commanders identified as being part of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The United States said Sunday that Prigozhin’s rebellion against Russia’s military leadership showed “very serious cracks” in the two-decade rule of President Vladimir Putin and “questions the very premise” of his 16-month war against Ukraine.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC’s “This Week” show, that the war “has been a devastating strategic failure for Putin across virtually every front – economic, military, geopolitical standing.”
“We see cracks emerging,” Blinken said of Prigozhin’s protest targeting Putin. “Where they go — if anywhere — when they get there, very hard to say. I don’t want to speculate on it. But I don’t think we’ve seen the final act.”
The top U.S. diplomat said the aftermath of Prigozhin’s Wagner Group advance Saturday on Moscow before an abrupt retreat well short of reaching the Russian capital is “still a moving picture,” with the outcome uncertain.
Putin called Prigozhin, a longtime ally whose troops had been fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, a traitor for turning against his authoritarian regime. Then the Russian leader said Prigozhin would not be prosecuted and allowed him to go to neighboring Belarus, a Russian ally, under a deal negotiated by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Russia said Prigozhin’s mercenaries who had not joined the short-lived rebellion would be allowed to sign contracts to fight with the Russian army in Ukraine, but Blinken said it was not clear what will happen to the mercenaries who followed Prigozhin into Russia and headed toward Moscow before Prigozhin called off his troop advance.
“The short answer is we don’t know,” Blinken said.
Asked what happens to Prigozhin in Belarus, aside from his amnesty, Blinken acknowledged, “We simply don’t know.”
Many of the Wagner Group forces are convicted criminals that Prigozhin enticed to the war front to fight for six months in exchange for release from their prison terms, if they survived. But they were poorly trained and thousands of them were quickly killed on the front lines.
Blinken said the turmoil created in Russia by the Prigozhin protest “may help the Ukrainians on the battle front.”
But David Petraeus, a retired U.S. Army general and former Central Intelligence Agency chief, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that “unfortunately it has not had a significant effect on the front lines.” But he, too, said the Prigozhin protest leaves Putin “more vulnerable than he’s ever been in two decades.”
Like Blinken, however, Petraeus said there are “many, many unknowns” remaining in determining the overall effect of the Putin-Prigozhin showdown.
Lukashenko negotiated the deal with the Wagner Group chief, his office said, with Putin’s approval. Lukashenko said he has known Prigozhin personally for 20 years.
Asked if there would be any personnel changes in the Russian defense ministry as part of the deal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “These matters are the sole prerogative and within the competence of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief [Putin] in accordance with the constitution of the Russian Federation. Therefore, it is unlikely that these topics could have been discussed in the course of the above-mentioned contacts.”
The Russian spokesman did not disclose whether there were any concessions made to persuade Prigozhin to withdraw all his forces, other than the guarantees for his safety — something he said Putin had given his word on — and for the safety of Prigozhin’s men.
Earlier Saturday, Prigozhin and his fighters got within about 200 kilometers of Moscow before he ordered his men to halt their advance, turn their convoy around and return to their bases in Ukraine to avoid bloodshed.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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