The United States and its allies had “nothing to do with” the Wagner mercenary group’s rebellion in opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his navy command, President Biden mentioned on Monday, his first public feedback on the short-lived rebel that incited a rare weekend of disaster in Russia.
“This was part of a struggle within the Russian system,” Mr. Biden informed reporters on the White House forward of an announcement on an web infrastructure initiative.
Mr. Biden mentioned he had instructed his nationwide safety staff to transient him “hour by hour” and to “prepare for a range of scenarios.” He additionally mentioned that he had convened a convention name to coordinate with a number of the United States’ key allies because the mutiny led by the Wagner founder Yevgeny V. Prigozhin started unfolding over the weekend.
On the decision, Mr. Biden mentioned, the allies agreed to offer Mr. Putin “no excuse to blame this on the West or to blame this on NATO.” He added, “We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it.”
Mr. Biden mentioned he and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, whom he spoke with on Sunday, would keep in touch. Mr. Biden mentioned that the United States would proceed to evaluate the fallout from the disaster in Russia and intently align responses with its allies. Still, he cautioned, it was “still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going.”
Mr. Prigozhin was final seen in public late Saturday after calling off Wagner’s transient revolt. He agreed to name off his forces’ march to Moscow below a deal that will halt a legal investigation into his actions and permit him to go to Belarus. On Monday, Mr. Prigozhin broke his silence to assert that his advance on Moscow had by no means been meant as a bid to grab energy.
In a separate news briefing, the State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, informed reporters on Monday that he didn’t know whether or not Mr. Prigozhin was in Belarus and that he had “no assessment” of Mr. Prigozhin’s location in any respect. He added that the United States didn’t know what would occur to Wagner fighters in Ukraine or Africa, calling the state of affairs “dynamic.”
Even so, Mr. Miller mentioned, the importance of Mr. Prigozhin’s energy play was clear.
“It is certainly a new thing to see President Putin’s leadership directly challenged,” he mentioned, noting that Mr. Prigozhin had publicly questioned the rationale for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one thing that “we certainly have not seen coming from Russian officials previously.”
Mr. Miller added that the United States did “not take a position on the leadership of the Russian Federation. We do not take a position on the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense.”
“Our policies have always been with respect to actions that Russia has taken,” he mentioned.
While Mr. Miller might have been articulating official U.S. coverage, President Biden has beforehand expressed a distinct private view.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Mr. Biden mentioned of Mr. Putin throughout a March 2022 go to to Poland.
Mr. Miller additionally mentioned that the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynne M. Tracy, had contacted the Russian authorities on Saturday, reminding Russian officers of their obligations to guard the U.S. embassy and diplomatic personnel in Moscow.
Mr. Miller mentioned that Ms. Tracy had additionally reiterated assurances that the Biden administration noticed the rebellion as an inside Russian matter, “one in which the United States is not involved and will not be involved.”
Source: www.nytimes.com