Blinken: Russian Rebellion Shows ‘Cracks Emerge’ in Putin’s Leadership

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the armed rebellion led by the head of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin shows “cracks emerge” in Russian leadership.

Blinken said, “We don’t have full information obviously and it is too soon to tell exactly where this is going to go. I suspect that this is a moving picture and we haven’t seen the last act yet. But we could say this, first of all, what we’ve seen is extraordinary. I think you’ve seen cracks emerge that weren’t there before. First, in having Prigozhin raise front and center questioning the very premises of the Russian aggression against Ukraine to begin with, the argument that somehow Ukraine or NATO posed a threat to Russia and a direct challenge to Putin himself. So, think about it this way, 16 months ago, Russian forces were on the doorstep of Kyiv, Ukraine, thinking they were going to take the city in a matter of days and erase the country from the map. Now they have to be focused on defending Moscow, Russia’s capital, against mercenaries of Putin’s own making. So this raises a lot of profound questions that will be answered I think in the days and weeks ahead.”

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