Russian President Vladimir Putin is buying time before seeking revenge against former ally Yevgeny Prigozhin over the short-lived mutiny last month, CIA Director William Burns said Thursday.
Last month's uprising led by the Wagner Group chief laid bare the weaknesses in Putin's "system" and his carefully crafted image and it's only a matter of time before the Russian president faces further retribution for his actions, Burns said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.
Under a deal brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko that the mutiny on June 24, the charges against Prigozhin and his Wagner Group fighters were dropped and they were to relocate to Belarus. The Wagner Group leader hasn't been officially sighted since the end of his uprising, however, a video emerged on Wednesday that appeared to be filmed in Belarus.
Prigozhin's mutiny "exposed weaknesses in the system that Putin has built, weaknesses that had already been laid bare by the disastrous and deeply destructive war launched in Ukraine," said Burns.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
Prior to leading the Wagner Group in an advance from Russia's southern Rostov region to Moscow, Prigozhin released a scathing video message casting doubt on Putin's justifications for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, saying they were lies fed to him by the Kremlin's top brass.
Burns said he believes that there's a relationship between the battleground in Ukraine and what's going in Russia, and that Prigozhin's criticism of the war will become more widespread among Russians as Kyiv makes advances in the war.
"In the sense that if and when Ukrainians make further advances on the battlefield, I think what that's going to do is cause more and more Russians in the elite and outside the elite, to pay attention to Prigozhin's critique of the war," he said.
"That's where Putin is trying to buy time as he considers what to do with Wagner and what to do with Prigozhin himself."
The CIA director said Putin will likely attempt to separate Prigozhin and undercut him, but "preserve" what's of value to him in the paramilitary outfit, given that the Wagner Group is "useful" to the Russian leader in Libya, Syria and sub-Saharan Africa, and contributed greatly to Moscow's efforts to capture the industrial city of Bakhmut in Ukraine's Donetsk region.
Responding to a question about President Joe Biden's suggestion Prigozhin could be in danger after his mutiny attempt, Burns said that in his experience, Putin is "the ultimate apostle of payback."
"So I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this," he said. "So in that sense, [Biden] is right, I wouldn't fire my food taster."
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
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