American President Joseph Biden said on Monday that the short-lived rebellion of Russian mercenaries against the Kremlin was part of the struggle within the Russian system and that the United States of America (USA) and its allies were not involved in it, Voice of America reports.
"We made it clear that we were not involved, that we had nothing to do with it," Biden said in his first comment on the riot.
Biden said he had instructed his national security team to keep him informed of the situation "on an hourly basis" and to prepare for a series of scenarios, the details of which he did not provide.
Russian intelligence services are investigating whether Western spy agencies played a role in the rebellion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday, TASS news agency reported.
The US president said he had spoken to key allies to ensure they were all on the same page and coordinated in their response.
"They agreed that we have to make sure that we don't give (Russian President Vladimir) Putin any excuse - to blame the West and NATO for this," Biden stressed.
He also announced that he will speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again on Monday or Tuesday, after the talks on Sunday, and that later today he will speak with the leader of an allied country, but he did not specify which one.
Biden said he and his team will continue to assess the consequences of the incident.
"It is still too early to make a final conclusion about the direction this is going," the American leader added and emphasized that his message to allies "is that it is important to remain fully coordinated."
The US previously said that mercenary leader Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion against Russia's military leadership shows "very serious cracks" in President Vladimir Putin's rule and "calls into question" the war against Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told ABC television that the war was "a devastating strategic failure for Putin on almost every front - economic, military, geopolitical".
"We're seeing cracks appear. In which direction they're going, where they're going to end up, it's very hard to say. I don't want to speculate on that. But I don't think we've seen the final act," says Blinken.
America's top diplomat said the aftermath of Prigozhin's Wagner group's advance on Moscow on Saturday, before the sudden retreat, was a "moving picture with an uncertain outcome".
Putin called Prigozhin, a longtime ally whose troops fought alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, a traitor for turning against the regime. However, in the end, the Russian president said that Prigozhin would not be prosecuted and allowed him to go to neighboring Belarus, in accordance with an agreement negotiated by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Russia said Prigozhin's mercenaries who did not join the short-lived rebellion would be allowed to sign contracts to fight with the Russian military in Ukraine, but Blinken said it was unclear what would now happen to the mercenaries who followed Prigozhin to Russia and headed for Moscow before Prigozhin halted the advance of his troops.
"The answer to that question is - we don't know," said Blinken and added that it is not known what is happening with Prigozhin now in Belarus.
The US Secretary of State said that the "direct challenge to Putin's authority" shows that the war in Ukraine "is being waged under false pretenses, that NATO is a threat to Russia."
But Prigozhin's frequent complaints about Moscow's defense officials centered on his claim that they were not supplying his mercenaries with enough weapons to fight in Ukraine.
Many members of the Wagner group are convicted criminals, whom Prigozhin invited to the front for six months, in exchange for release from prison if they survive the war. But they were poorly trained, and thousands of them were quickly killed on the front lines.
Blinken said that the turmoil in Russia caused by the Prigozhin protests "may help the Ukrainians at the front."
David Petraeus, a retired US Army general and former head of the CIA, told CNN that "it didn't have a significant impact on the front lines".
But he also said that Prigozhin's protest leaves Putin "more vulnerable than he's ever been in two decades."
However, like Blinken, Petraeus said many unknowns remain in determining the overall effect of the Putin-Prigozhin conflict.
The Kremlin announced that the criminal charges against Prigozhin for organizing an armed rebellion would be dismissed.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has negotiated an agreement with the head of the Wagner Group, his office said, with Putin's approval. Lukashenko said that he has known Prigozhin personally for 20 years.
The negotiations also guaranteed that Wagner's fighters would not be prosecuted, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"We have always respected their heroic deeds at the front," he said, adding that Moscow was grateful to Lukashenko for his role in de-escalating the crisis.
Those fighters who did not participate in the rebellion, Peskov said, will be offered contracts with the Ministry of Defense, which is seeking to bring all autonomous volunteer forces under its control by July 1.
Asked if there would be any personnel changes in the Russian Defense Ministry as part of the deal, Peskov said that was within Putin's jurisdiction.
He did not reveal whether any concessions were made to Prigozhin to withdraw his forces, other than security guarantees. A Kremlin spokesman called the recent events "tragic."
Prigozhin did not announce whether the Kremlin responded to his request to remove Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu or what Lukashenko promised him in their negotiations.
Moscow on Saturday was preparing for the arrival of a private army led by a rebel commander, whom Putin warned would face dire consequences.
The Wagnerites, however, withdrew on Saturday evening from Rostov-on-Don, a city near the border with Ukraine, over which they took control the day before.
State Department: US not involved in Wagner group rebellion
US Ambassador to Moscow Lynn Tracy contacted Russian authorities directly this weekend to assure them that the US was "not involved" in the failed insurgency by the Wagner paramilitary group in Russia, the State Department said, Beta reports.
Ambassador Tracy, as well as American officials who contacted the Russian embassy in Washington, stated that "the US is not and will not be involved" in the events that shook Russia, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said tonight.
U.S. officials also said they "hope Russia will meet its obligations to protect the embassy and diplomatic personnel" based in Moscow, Mueller said.
Diplomatic relations between Washington and Russia have been at their lowest since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and high-level talks mostly concern American detainees in Russia.
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