By Seung Min Kim and Aamer
Madhani, WASHINGTON US
On the surface, the turmoil in Russia would seem like something for the U.S. to celebrate: a powerful mercenary group engaging in a short-lived clash with Russia’s military at the very moment that Ukraine is trying to gain momentum in a critical counteroffensive.
But the public response by
Washington has been decidedly cautious. Officials say the U.S. had no role in
the conflict, insist this was an internal matter for Russia and decline to
comment on whether it could affect the war in Ukraine. The reason: to avoid
creating an opening for Russian President Vladimir Putin to seize on the
rhetoric of American officials and rally Russians by blaming his Western
adversaries.
Even President Joe Biden,
known for straying from talking points, has stayed on script.
Biden told reporters Monday that the
United States and NATO weren’t involved. Biden said he held a video call with
allies over the weekend and they are all in sync in working to ensure that they
give Putin “no excuse to blame this on the West” or NATO.
“We made clear that we were
not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Biden said. “This was part of a
struggle within the Russian system.”
Biden
and administration officials declined to give an immediate assessment of what
the 22-hour uprising by the Wagner Group might mean for Russia’s war in
Ukraine, for mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin or for Russia
itself.
“We’re going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend’s events and the implications from Russia and Ukraine,” Biden said. “But it’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going.”
Putin, in his first public
comments since the rebellion, said “Russia’s enemies” had hoped the mutiny
would succeed in dividing and weakening Russia, “but they miscalculated.” He
identified the enemies as “the neo-Nazis in Kyiv, their Western patrons and
other national traitors.”
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
said Russia was investigating whether Western intelligence services were
involved in Prigozhin’s rebellion.
Over the course of a
tumultuous weekend in Russia, U.S. diplomats were in contact with their
counterparts in Moscow to underscore that the American government regarded the
matter as a domestic affair for Russia, with the U.S. only a bystander, State
Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Michael McFaul, a former U.S.
ambassador to Russia, said that Putin in the past has alleged clandestine U.S.
involvement in events — including democratic uprisings in former Soviet
countries, and campaigns by democracy activists inside and outside Russia — as
a way to diminish public support among Russians for those challenges to the
Russian system.
The U.S. and NATO “don’t want
to be blamed for the appearance of trying to destabilize Putin,” McFaul said.
A feud between the Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and Russia’s
military brass that has festered throughout the war erupted into the mutiny
that saw the mercenaries leave Ukraine to seize a military headquarters in a
southern Russian city. They rolled for hundreds of kilometers toward Moscow,
before turning around on Saturday, in a deal whose terms remain uncertain.
Biden’s national security team
briefed him hourly as Prigozhin’s forces were on the move, the president said.
He said he had directed them to “prepare for a range of scenarios” as Russia’s
crisis unfolded.
Biden did not elaborate on the
scenarios. But national security spokesman John Kirby addressed one concern
raised frequently as the world watched the cracks opening in Putin’s hold on
power — worries that the Russian leader might take extreme action to reassert
his command.
Putin and his lieutenants have
made repeated references to Russia’s nuclear weapons since invading Ukraine 16
months ago, aiming to discourage NATO countries from increasing their support
to Ukraine.
“One thing that we have always
talked about, unabashedly so, is that it’s in nobody’s interest for this war to
escalate beyond the level of violence that is already visited upon the
Ukrainian people,” Kirby said at a White House news briefing. “It’s not good
for, certainly, Ukraine and not good for our allies and partners in Europe.
Quite frankly, it’s not good for the Russian people.”
Biden spoke with Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the weekend, telling him, ”’No matter what
happened in Russia, let me say again, no matter what happened in Russia, we in
the United States would continue to support Ukraine’s defense and sovereignty
and its territorial integrity.” Biden said.
The Pentagon is expected to
announce Tuesday that it is sending up to $500 million in additional military aid to Ukraine,
including more than 50 heavily armored vehicles and an infusion of missiles for
air defense systems, U.S. officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity
because the aid had not yet been publicly announced.
Biden, in the first weeks
after Putin sent tens of thousands of Russian forces into Ukraine in February
2022, had issued a passionate statement against the Russian leader’s continuing
in command. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” he said then, as
reports emerged of Russian atrocities against civilians in Ukraine.
On Monday, U.S. officials were
careful not to be seen as backing either Putin or his former longtime protege,
Prigozhin, in public comments.
“We believe it’s up to the
Russian people to determine who their leadership is,” Kirby said.
White House officials were
also trying to understand how Beijing was digesting the Wagner revolt and what
it might mean for the China-Russia relationship going forward. China and Russia
are each other’s closest major partner. The White House says Beijing has
considered — but not followed through on — sending Russia weaponry for use in
Ukraine.
“I think it’d be fair to say
that recent developments in Russia had been unsettling to the Chinese
leadership,” said Kurt Campbell, coordinator for the Indo-Pacific at the White
House National Security Council, speaking at a forum hosted by the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I think I’ll just leave it
at that.”
China values Russia as a
friend in part to keep from standing alone against the U.S. and its allies in
disputes. With Russia’s invasion and resulting international sanctions sapping
Russian resources and now sparking a rebellion, McFaul said, Ukraine and its
allies could make the case: ”’Xi Jinping, you know, if you want your buddy to
stay in power, maybe this is the time to put some pressure on him to wrap up
this war.‴
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