2023-06-27 10:17:03
WASHINGTON. Neither the United States nor NATO had any involvement in the brief Wagner Group insurrection in Russia, US President Joe Biden said, calling the uprising and its challenge to Vladimir Putin’s power “a fight within the Russian system.”
Biden and America’s allies — including other nations that support Ukraine in its response to the Russian invasion — showed a clear determination to be seen out of Putin’s many problems with the mutiny, worried that the Russian leader he can use accusations of Western involvement in the revolt to rally the Russians in his defense.
Over the course of a tumultuous weekend in Russia, US diplomats were in contact with their counterparts in Moscow to stress that the US government viewed the issue as internal to Russia and of which the United States was merely a bystander, a report said. US official familiar with those conversations.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US diplomats also stressed to Moscow that they expected Russia to ensure the safety of the US embassy in Moscow and US citizens detained in Russia.
Biden noted that he had a video call with his allies over the weekend and that they were all determined not to give Putin “any excuse to blame this on the West.”
“We made it clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Biden asserted. “This was part of a fight within the Russian system.”
Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, said Putin has previously alleged clandestine US involvement in various events — including democracy uprisings in former Soviet countries and democracy protests inside Russia — as a way of diminishing public support among Russians to those challenges to the Russian system.
The United States and NATO “do not want to be given the appearance of trying to destabilize Putin,” McFaul reiterated.
Biden also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the weekend and said he intended to speak with him again late Monday or early Tuesday.
“I told him that whatever happens in Russia, let me say it again, whatever happens in Russia, the United States will continue to support the defense and sovereignty of Ukraine and its territorial integrity.”
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