Putin shopping for extra time earlier than looking for revenge on former ally, warns CIA boss
Vladimir Putin is shopping for time earlier than looking for revenge towards the previous chief of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the pinnacle of the CIA has mentioned.
Prigozhin disclosed the weaknesses within the Russian President’s “system” and punctiliously crafted picture in an rebellion final month.
At a safety discussion board within the US, CIA director William Burns mentioned it was solely a matter of time earlier than Putin faces additional retribution for his actions.
Charges towards Prigozhin and his Wagner Group fighters have been dropped final month beneath a deal brokered by Belarusian chief Alexander Lukashenko they usually have been to relocate to Belarus.
Since the tip of his rebellion, Prigozhin hasn’t been formally sighted, nevertheless, on Wednesday a video emerged that gave the impression to be filmed in Belarus.
William Burns mentioned the Wagner Group chief’s mutiny “exposed weaknesses in the system that Putin has built, weaknesses that had already been laid bare by the disastrous and deeply destructive war launched in Ukraine.”
In a scathing video message earlier than main the Wagner Group in an advance from Russia‘s southern Rostov area to Moscow, Prigozhin forged doubt on Vladimir Putin‘s causes for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, saying they have been lies fed to him by the Kremlin’s prime brass.
Burns additional believes there is a relationship between the battleground in Ukraine and what is going on on in Russia, and as Kyiv makes advances within the warfare, Prigozhin’s criticism will turn into extra widespread amongst Russians.
Burns mentioned: “In the sense that if and when Ukrainians make further advances on the battlefield, I think what that’s going to do is cause more and more Russians in the elite and outside the elite, to pay attention to Prigozhin’s critique of the war.”
He added: “That’s where Putin is trying to buy time as he considers what to do with Wagner and what to do with Prigozhin himself.”
The CIA director added that an try by Putin to separate Prigozhin and undercut him is probably going, however “preserve” what’s of worth to him within the paramilitary outfit, provided that the Wagner Group is “useful” to the Russian chief in Libya, Syria and sub-Saharan Africa, and contributed enormously to Moscow’s efforts to seize the commercial metropolis of Bakhmut in Ukraine‘s Donetsk area.
Following US President Joe Biden’s suggestion that the Wagner Group chief might be at risk after his mutiny try, Burns mentioned that in his expertise, Putin is “the ultimate apostle of payback”.
“So I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this,” he mentioned. Adding that he “wouldn’t fire his food taster.”