WASHINGTON, June 25. /TASS/. US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Mark Milley, spoke to their European counterparts on the phone on Saturday "to reassure them" amid the situation in Russia, Politico reported, citing officials in Washington.
According to them, the phone calls were also focused on the effort "to reinforce the need to message neutrality." "No one should be spiking the football," an official said. The general agreement on the calls was that Kiev now has "an unprecedented opportunity to advance," the newspaper said, adding that Washington was tracking PMC Wagner.
Also, officials said, the Biden administration is evaluating a potential impact of the developments in Russia on the conflict in Ukraine. Senior US officials engaged in several interagency meetings on Friday night and Saturday morning to assess that, Politico said. Biden’s departure from the White House for his weekend retreat in Camp David, Maryland, was postponed.
US officials believe that the situation in Russia would allegedly "provide Ukraine with a much-needed opportunity to reverse the fortunes of its sputtering counteroffensive," according to Politico. However, Washington has yet to draw up a formal assessment of the events, while officials maintained that it was too early to make conclusions. "I don’t see how it could hurt them," one of the senior officials told the newspaper as he referred to Russia.
Wagner crisis
On the evening of June 23, several audio recordings were posted on Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Telegram channel. He particularly claimed that his units had come under attack, which he blamed on the country’s military authorities. The Federal Security Service (FSB) launched a criminal probe into calls for armed mutiny. The Russian Defense Ministry slammed the allegations of a strike on the PMC Wagners "rear camps" as fake news.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address to the nation on Saturday, described the Wagner group’s actions as armed mutiny and betrayal, vowing to take tough measures against the mutineers.
Later on Saturday, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, in coordination with Putin, held talks with Prigozhin working out a de-escalation plan. Later, Prigozhin said that PMC Wagner was halting the movement of its convoys which appeared to be headed toward Moscow, turning them back and returning to field camps. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a criminal case against the Wagner chief would be dropped, while Prigozhin himself would go to Belarus. Besides, the Russian authorities pledged not to prosecute those at PMC Wagner who took part in the mutiny because of their "frontline merits.".