Moscow: Russia’s crisis involving mercenary group’s aborted revolt against Kremlin exposed “Real cracks” in President Vladimir Putin’s rule, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Uprising by armed Wagner group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin over weekend, with Prigozhin’s private military rushing towards Moscow before they were called off in stunning development for nuclear-armed Russia, marked “Direct challenge to Putin’s authority,” Blinken told CBS News talk show “Face Nation.”

“So this raises profound questions, it shows real cracks,” top American diplomat said. Remarks were the first public declarations about crisis by United States, which over past 24 hours had been intensively engaged in consultations with European allies on revolt. Blinken, making rounds on multiple talk shows said it was too early to speculate on impact of rebellion, either on Kremlin or on war in Ukraine. But he deemed it an “Extraordinary” series of events, in which close Putin ally who sent his private mercenaries into Ukraine to undertake some of most brutal fighting of war rapidly turned against Russia’s leader and threatened very center of power in Kremlin. He said Prigozhin drama has shown just how deep of “Failure” invasion of Ukraine has been for Russia and how much Putin, whose grip on power had appeared absolute in recent years, is “Being challenged from within.”

Published in The Daily National Courier, June, 26 2023

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