US Secretary of State Anthony Blanken has said that the failed coup by a mercenary group against the Kremlin in Russia’s crisis has revealed “real cracks” in President Vladimir Putin’s power.
Speaking on the CBS News talk show “Face the Nation,” Blanken said the weekend coup by the private Wagner group and its leader Evgeny Prigozhin amounted to a “direct challenge to Putin’s authority.” .
“This crisis raises deep questions, it reveals real cracks,” he said. This statement is the first public response from the US to the developments in Russia. He had spent the past 24 hours consulting with European allies on the coup.
Blanken appeared on several talk shows on Sunday. He said it would be premature to speculate on the impact of the crisis on the Kremlin or the war in Ukraine.
But he described the short-lived coup as an “unusual” series of events, in which a close Putin ally quickly turned against the Russian leader and threatened the center of power in the Kremlin even though the man sent his private mercenaries into Ukraine to fight the most brutal battles of the war.
Blanken told ABC News’ “This Week” that 16 months ago, Russian forces were threatening to take over all of Ukraine, but now this weekend, they see the defense of the Russian capital, Moscow, as Putin’s own. Made by mercenaries.
He said that throughout the incident Prigozhin himself raised deep questions about the premise of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, while neither Ukraine nor NATO posed a threat to Russia, which is part of Putin’s narrative.
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