How Western countries reacted to the Wagner rebellion

The mutiny of the founder of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin was perceived in the West in two ways. On the one hand, Washington looked at him with some hope and, according to the American media, even postponed the imposition of new sanctions against this formation. On the other hand, the United States urged its European allies to remain neutral in relation to the events in the Russian Federation. In addition, according to the leaks, NATO was concerned about the safety of Russian nuclear facilities and even contacted the Ministry of Defense about this, assuring them that they were not involved in what was happening. The rebellion, which began on the evening of June 23 and ended on the evening of the 24th, will be one of the main topics of the meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, June 26.

Despite the fact that the Wagner rebellion lasted only a day and ended, according to Minsk, thanks to intervention President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Western countries continue to carefully analyze what happened in Russia and the impact of what happened on the further development of events. On Monday, June 26, according to Belgian Prime Minister Alexandre De Croo, “the situation in Russia, where the rebellion has already ended” will be the main topic of the scheduled meeting of the EU foreign ministers.

As Belgian Foreign Minister Adja Labib explained, EU members all this time “exchanged information about what is happening in Russia, what (it will have.— “b”) impacts on the ground, including long-term ones.”

And now they intend to continue the discussion in Luxembourg.

Meanwhile, most Western countries are very cautious in commenting on the events in the Russian Federation and assure that they are simply “closely following” the situation. As British Undersecretary of the Treasury John Glen told Sky News, “the situation in Russia is very unstable, but fundamentally this is an internal affair.” On behalf of the British government, he assured that this was “not the kind of thing” in which the Allies would interfere, and noted that “in terms of support for Ukraine, nothing has changed.” On the whole, all official comments from Western capitals were of approximately the same content. Only the head of the Czech Foreign Ministry, Jan Lipavsky, stood apart, who could not resist and wrote on Twitter: “I see that my summer holidays in Crimea are approaching.” No one particularly shared his frivolous attitude, and German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock even postponed her visit to South Africa against the backdrop of news from Russia.

At the same time, the expectations and fears associated with the rebellion formed a double perception by the West of what was happening. On the one hand, US intelligence knew in advance that Mr. Prigozhin “had been preparing to challenge the military leadership” of Russia for quite some time, the TV channel reported, citing sources. CNN. With this information, according to the newspaper The Wall Street Journal, Washington decided to postpone the imposition of sanctions against Wagner PMCs, so as not to accidentally help President Vladimir Putin. “Washington doesn’t want to appear to be taking sides in this matter,” the source said.

According to the newspaper, on Tuesday, June 27, the State Department planned to announce sanctions against the “gold business” PMC “Wagner” in Africa, in particular against a mining company in the Central African Republic. Whether the Americans will shelve that decision now that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion appears to have ended is not reported.

Western media noted that the events taking place (at that time) in the Russian Federation could favorably affect the counteroffensive of Ukraine, which, having started in early June, has not yet brought the expected success.

On the other hand, it cannot be said that the events of June 23-24 did not disturb Kyiv’s Western allies. According to the publication Politico, during numerous telephone conversations, American officials urged their European colleagues to remain neutral in the situation with the Wagner PMC. Washington urged partners not to rush things and perceive what is happening solely as an “unprecedented opportunity for Kyiv to move forward.”

In the meantime, it seems that the US had a very specific reason for concern. According to an Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the march of the Wagnerites to Moscow forced NATO representatives to contact the Russian Ministry of Defense directly. “The Alliance wanted to make sure that what happened did not lead to a nuclear incident. Among other things, the West immediately decided to make it clear that it had nothing to do with the actions of Yevgeny Prigozhin. The newspaper emphasized that the fate of “more than 1.4 thousand nuclear warheads ready for immediate use” worried the North Atlantic Alliance most of all. None of the parties officially confirmed the negotiations.

One way or another, other publications in the Western media confirm the concern for nuclear safety in the context of the rebellion. Yes, TV CNN relayed the words of two unnamed U.S. officials who assured that they were seeing “no change in the deployment of Russian nuclear forces” and added that the U.S. “has “long-standing, established channels of communication with Russia on nuclear issues.”

It is obvious that the West does not consider the incident with the Wagner PMC to be over. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken June 25 declaredthat it is still “an ongoing story”.

“We haven’t seen the last act yet. We are following this very closely,” the head of the State Department said. Despite the fact that the movement of Mr. Prigozhin’s units to Moscow ended as quickly as it began, Mr. Blinken is sure that this was “a direct challenge to Putin’s authority.” “16 months ago, Russian troops stood on the outskirts of Kyiv, thinking that they would take the city in a matter of days, thinking that they would erase Ukraine from the map as an independent country. Now, over the course of this weekend, they had to defend Moscow, the capital of Russia, from mercenaries of their own production,” noted Anthony Blinken, adding that “first of all, Prigozhin raised deep questions about the very premises of Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

Moscow does not agree with this interpretation of events. Judging by the statements of the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, the Russian authorities consider the story of the Wagner rebellion closed. Moreover, according to him, what happened “in no case” will not affect the course of hostilities. “The SVO continues, our fighters on the front line are showing heroism,” Mr. Peskov assured.

Alexey Zabrodin