NEW YORK, June 27. /TASS/. The US and other Western allies of Ukraine asked Kiev to refrain from striking Russian territory during the armed mutiny of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), CNN reported on Monday, citing Western officials.
"The message was don't rock the boat here," the official told CNN. According to him, the West feared that Moscow would consider such actions on the part of Ukraine as support for mutineers and attempts to challenge Russian sovereignty by Kiev and its allies. "Ukrainians were being cautioned by allies not to provoke the situation. Make hay of opportunities on Ukrainian territory but don't get drawn into internal matters or strike at offensive military assets inside of Russia," the official revealed, "You just don't want to feed into the narrative that this was initiative by us."
A message to that effect was circulated at the level of foreign ministers and senior diplomats, as well as through ambassadors.
Axios earlier reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent an urgent cable to State Department employees on June 23, forbidding them to comment on the attempted Wagner PMC mutiny in Russia. The cable also pointed out that Blinken and his inner circle were directly monitoring the events.
On the evening of June 23, several audio recordings were posted on the Telegram channel of Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. In particular, he claimed that his units had come under attack, blaming the Russian military. The Federal Security Service (FSB) launched a criminal probe into calls for armed mutiny. In turn, the Russian Defense Ministry slammed the Wagner boss’ allegations of a strike on the PMC’s "rear camps" as fake news. The PMC units that supported Prigozhin headed to Rostov-on-Don and then turned toward Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address to the nation on Saturday, described the Wagner group’s actions as armed mutiny and a betrayal, vowing to take tough measures against the mutineers.