U.S. Sec. of State Antony Blinken spoke with Sunday morning news programs June 25 about the U.S. reaction to an apparent coup attempt against Russian president Vladimir Putin. The State Department released transcripts of Blinken's interviews with "CBS Face the Nation" and "CNN State of the Union."
On June 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Russian-supported paramilitary mercenary organization the Wagner Group, led his fighters in an uprising against Russian military leadership. Prigozhin, who for months had been openly critical of Russian military leaders, accused Russian troops of "attacking a Wagner camp and killing a 'huge amount” of his men'," CNN reported June 24. "He vowed to retaliate with force, insinuating that his forces would 'destroy' any resistance, including roadblocks and aircraft."
"The crisis began when Prigozhin unleashed a new tirade against the Russian military Friday before taking control of military facilities in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh, plunging Russia into renewed uncertainty as President Vladimir Putin faces the biggest threat to his authority in decades," CNN reported in the article. After taking control of a military installation on Rostov-on-Don then marching to within 120 miles of Moscow, Prigozhin turned his troops away to "avoid bloodshed," CNN reported.
Blinken told CNN's Dana Bash that the situation in Russia was "a moving picture and we haven’t seen the last act yet," the transcript records.
He said the events that had unfolded were "extraordinary" in the challenge they presented to Russia's premise for invading Ukraine and to Putin's regime.
"I think you see cracks emerge that weren’t there before," Blinken said in the interview.
When asked by Bash if the uprising might signal "the beginning of the end" for Putin and his regime, Blinken said he didn't want to "speculate about that."
"But what’s so striking about it is it’s internal," Blinken said to Bash, according to the transcript. "The fact that you have, from within, someone directly questioning Putin’s authority, directly questioning the premises that – upon which he launched this aggression against Ukraine, that in and of itself is something very powerful. It adds cracks. Where those go, when they get there, too soon to say. But it clearly raises new questions that Putin has to deal with."
CNN reported that when Putin addressed the nation after the uprising, he referred to Prigozhin’s mutiny as “a stab in the back of our country and our people” and vowed to hold the insurgents “accountable.” However, in an unexpected move, Putin agreed to allow Prigozhin to exile in Belarus, in a deal brokered by Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko, CNN reported.
Blinken told Margaret Brennan, host of CBS' "Face the Nation," that Putin's speech showed "we still don't have finality in terms of what was actually agreed between Prigozhin and Putin."
The Wagner uprising and Putin’s response have led some experts to question the Russian leader’s vulnerability. In a June 24 interview with NPR, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said he thinks the uprising and eventual decision to allow Prigozhin to go to Belarus instead of facing charges "is a sign of his (Putin's) weakness, that he is not in control of the situation, and he’s choosing between bad and worse outcomes."
McFaul said in the NPR interview that Prigozhin's actions were "at least doing a mutiny, maybe a coup" that made Putin appear to have lost control of the situation. He said that despite talking a "really tough game" in his speech to the Russian people, Putin was "rather feckless in his response" to the uprising.
"That suggests that he's much weaker today than he was just 24 hours ago," McFaul said in the interview.
As for Prizgozhin's next moves, McFaul said he would "be surprised if he just goes to Belarus and retires for the rest of his time."
"He has become a populist figure," McFaul said to NPR. "His soldiers were cheered as they left Rostov, and I just cannot imagine that he just fades away. I think he presents a real problem for Putin for the future."
